That American Girl AU: The Affair
by Kat-of-the-Streets
Summary: Another Alternative Universe to my own AU of That American Girl. Violet got her will and Robert did not marry Cora. This story is set in 1914 and includes Cora's pregnancy. This is a mainly a Cora/Robert story but includes Matthew/Mary and two of the original characters from TAG as well. Now with an epilogue about the beginning fo the affair.
1. Chapter 1

AN: The universe of _That American Girl_ is somehow still stuck in my mind and there are several alternative versions that I have decided to work on. This is the second one of them.

For those of you who haven't read the original version of _That American Girl (TAG)_ here is a short summary:

_TAG_ is based on the idea that Violet got her will and that Robert did not marry Cora, but someone else instead. Consequently Cora married someone else as well, namely the Duke of Suffolk and they have a son named William Samuel. However, Sam has never met his father because the father died before Sam was born, which of course means that Sam himself has been a duke all his life. Cora was never really happy with the Duke.

Robert and his wife have a horrible marriage and do not get along at all, but they have daughter, Mary (yes, THE Mary). Robert and Cora eventually meet again and fall in love.

Anyway, I hope you like this and that I am not boring you with the _TAG_ universe.

As always, let me know what you think!

Kat

P.S.: I know this is a rather unrealistic story and it probably is OOC a bit for both Robert and Cora, at least considering their relationship to one another, but I just liked the idea of this story and hope that you do too.

For those of you who have not read the original TAG story: The first chapter is told from Sam's point of view, which might be little hard to realize if you don't know the original version.

* * *

He has lived with just his mother all his life. Except for the servants of course, but in matters of family it has always just been the two of them. His father died before he was even born, apparently the man was part of carriage race gone wrong, and he has been the Duke of Suffolk all his life. It has never bothered him, it has always been like that and he wonders if maybe the responsibility wears less on him than on others of a similar rank because he has never known it to be different. His mother has of course taught him well, she taught him to accept his position but to also think about other aspects of life. She also told him that he should get married only for love. He knows that his parents' marriage wasn't a love match, his mother's money saved his father's and thereby his estate and he also knows that his mother still regrets that marriage.

He is about to propose marriage himself, he knows that at twenty he is still rather young, but he also knows that Lilly Shackleton is the love of his life and she has been for the past four years. He is sure she will say yes and it makes him very happy. This will of course mean a major change in his and his mother's living arrangements because Lilly will obviously live with them. Fortunately, Lilly and his mother get along very well, in fact Lilly prefers his mother over her own, but there is one thing he needs to tell Lilly before the wedding, maybe even before the proposal, in fact there are two things.

While he was still younger, he sometimes wondered why his mother never remarried, there were men enough who were interested in her, who came to visit them in their townhouse in London, some of them even tried to strike up some sort of friendship with him and there were a few that he thought were rather nice, but his mother never showed any real interest, claiming her son's title and responsibility as the reason. Ever since falling in love with Lilly however, he has had the suspicion that there might be another reason all together. His mother isn't always home, she spends one or two nights away from their house almost every week and if for some reason there are weeks in which she just stays at their house, she gets rather moody and seems lonely. So four years ago, when he fell in love himself, he realized that his mother must be in love too and that she probably has an affair with someone. It doesn't really bother him, his mother is an adult, she owes him no explanations, but he thinks that this affair must have been going on for many years.

His mother once told him that she couldn't have any more children, that his birth had been very difficult and caused rather a lot of irreparable damage and so there had been even less reason for him to care about his mother's affair, as long as it stayed secret. However, he isn't so sure about the irreparable damage part anymore. His mother has changed, not in a bad way, but she has become more emotional and more fidgety and he has heard her cry several times now. When he asked her about it, she said it was nothing, but he has heard her throw up every morning for the past week and he is almost sure that she is pregnant. He has already considered just confronting her with his suspicion, in fact he has already made plans on how to deal with this, his plan is to take his mother to his estate, let her have the baby there without society pointing her finger at her and then just refuse to give any explanations later on. Maybe that is not the best of plans, but it is the only one that would work. He'd love to have a brother or sister, he doesn't care about the legitimacy of his sibling, he couldn't care less about a scandal. He'd not even mind the child's father staying with them, although he is sure that he must be a married man, because otherwise he'd know the man and his mother would be married to him. He wonders if the child's father knows about the child, but he will ask his mother about that once she tells him about the baby, because eventually she will have to tell him.

When he arrives at the Palace of Westminster to attend a meeting of the House of Lords, he doesn't pay attention to where he is walking and runs into someone standing in the doorway.

"Oh, I am so sorry," he says. He has no idea who he has just run into, there are more than 700 members in the House of Lords and he knows about thirty of them.

"Never mind, I was the one standing in the doorway." He is surprised by the kindness of the man he has bumped into because the man in question must be at least 20 years his senior and those men usually do not take kindly to him because he is still so young but ranks above most of them. That is of course unless they have a daughter they would like to be a Duchess. Then those men are very friendly to him. This one probably has an eligible daughter too.

"You are the Duke of Suffolk." It is not a question and that is never a good sign.

"Yes, I am. Who are you?" he asks rather unceremoniously.

"The Earl of Grantham."

"Oh, Matthew Crawley's father-in-law then." He knows he is being too forward, but he has gotten to know Matthew Crawley rather well over the course of the last three months and he likes him a lot. They met because he was looking for a lawyer with an expertise in industrial law and the two of them have struck up a friendship.

"Matthew mentioned you were one of his clients."

"That means that you do not have a daughter you want to push towards me."

"Excuse me?" Sometimes he curses his almost American upbringing.

"I am sorry Lord Grantham, but it happens rather often that Lords who are very friendly to me are only that because they have a daughter they would like to be a duchess. But you only have the one daughter and she is married already." He knows this because Matthew told him. They have lunch together once or twice a week and Matthew told him how he became Lord Grantham's heir when the Titanic sank and how he fell in love with the Earl's only daughter on first sight and how after some initial shyness, she had fallen for him too and made him the happiest man on earth.

"I didn't know Matthew talked about our private family matters to his clients."

"He usually doesn't, but we've struck up a friendship and so he told me. And I am sorry about your wife dying." He almost forgot that Lord Grantham's wife died about seven or eight months ago.

"Thank you," Lord Grantham replies and he is almost sure that the Earl doesn't look too sorry. But according to Matthew the wife must have been horrible and maybe he is glad that he is finally not bound to her anymore.

The session begins and he has to leave because his seat is somewhere on the other side, but when he makes to leave for lunch, Lord Grantham is waiting for him.

"As you are a good friend of my son-in-law, I thought you might join me for lunch."

"Sure," he answers. He knows it is very American and when Lord Grantham laughs at this he can feel his face turning red.

"You've had a rather American upbringing, I assume."

"Yes. We didn't spend that much time in America, all in all maybe three years, but never for a period longer than four months. My mother wanted to make sure that I grew up in England. But, as the whole world seems to know, she is an American and of course that has influenced me quite a lot."

"And not for the worse, I'd say."

"You are one of a very few people who think so. Although it might be a family trait because Matthew said something similar. My well, not really fiancé, I haven't asked her yet, thinks so too. And my mother. But that is about it. I guess I just have to live with not being what I should be in the eyes of society."

"No one ever is that, Sam. Some, unfortunately most people, play a role, some to such an extent that they lose themselves." Sam. He can't believe it.

"Lord Grantham, would you care to join the Dowager Duchess and myself for dinner tonight?"

"Yes. Thank you for the invitation. I'd like to see your mother again."

"So you know my mother."

"Fleetingly." Fleetingly. That must be the understatement of this and the previous century. He doesn't say anything though, because he genuinely likes Lord Grantham but he is rather shocked because this is not what he expected, not at all.

When he tells his mother about the impending visit of the Earl of Grantham, she can hardly keep her composure and he wonders if he shouldn't just let her off the hook, but then again he is having fun with this and he knows that his mother can take a joke, he knows that at least she will laugh about this in the end. He isn't too sure about Lord Grantham's ability to laugh about himself, but he thinks that all in all, it would make things much, much easier if the two of them would just come clean to him. And probably to Lady Mary and Matthew. And the infamous 'Granny'.

He joins his mother in the drawing room and he is sure that he has never seen her so nervous. He thinks about teasing her, but then remembers that she is very likely pregnant and decides against that.

"The Earl of Grantham," the butler announces and both he and his mother get up.

He almost feels sorry for his mother and Lord Grantham because he can see that it is quite a struggle for them to not appear too familiar, so he pretends to be oblivious to every slip they make. The dinner conversation is polite if a little held back and he has to carry most of the conversation because his usually rather chatty mother seems to be afraid of saying something that will give her away.

"Mama, I don't think we need the separation today with just one guest. Let's just all go the drawing room. Unless you insist on a cigar Lord Grantham, because that cannot be smoked in the drawing room.

"I don't, thank you." He knows he's been a little unkind but he wants to test the Earl to find out more about him and so far his impression that Lord Grantham is a nice man has held true. In fact he can't imagine him not being a good man because if he wasn't his mother wouldn't have had an affair with him for years, probably almost two decades. Because he knows that there is something that his mother should tell Lord Grantham and that she could never do so while he was still there, he decides to go to bed rather early.

"Mama, Lord Grantham, I am rather tired and I think I'll go upstairs. You don't have to leave on my account Lord Grantham, I know you and my mother are old friends." He kisses his mother on the cheek and leaves. He briefly considers waiting outside the drawing room to listen but then thinks that it is really not his business and that he'd be mortified if his mother new about some conversations he has had with Lilly, so he decides to really go upstairs.


	2. Chapter 2

AN: Thank you for all the reviews! I am really glad you like this story so much.

Kat

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"Cora, I" he wants to apologize for this strange evening but she shakes her head, puts a finger to her lips and waits for about half a minute. She gets up then, looks outside the drawing room door, returns to the sofa and says "He's really gone to bed, I think,"

"What else would he be doing?"

"Listen. He is usually not one to eavesdrop, but you never know."

"I am very sorry about all of this, but I couldn't very well refuse a dinner invitation issued by a duke."

"No, I suppose you couldn't have said that you were busy tonight but would like to come here tomorrow so that we could have talked about this first."

"I was too surprised when he invited me here."

"You were the one who invited him for lunch, Robert."

"In hindsight, we should have talked about that first as well." She is right of course, he has acted like a stupid fool, he has risked everything they have managed to keep under wraps for the past 18 years, although now that he is finally out of mourning, he keeps thinking that he should just propose to Cora. He doesn't want her to be his mistress anymore, he never wanted her to be that, but so far it has been either that or not being with her at all, and that would have killed him. But now that his first wife is dead, he has a hard time not to think 'finally', he could just make Cora his wife, he thinks he should, he just hasn't come up with good plan for a proposal yet. And he would need to tell Mary and Matthew, although he probably wouldn't have to mention the affair, but given the fact that both his daughter and son-in-law are rather inquisitive, he wouldn't count on them not finding out about it. But that wouldn't really matter, it is his decision if he wants to get married again and Mary hated her mother with all her guts, so she might understand. His poor girl has had a horrible childhood, she never got along with her mother who used to call her stupid and yelled at her at least once a day. Mary didn't speak to anyone but him until she was seven, his parents and sister and brother-in-law believed him when he told them that Mary was in fact very intelligent, but his wife, Mary's mother did not believe it, believed that her daughter was too stupid to speak, when in fact the girl was too afraid to speak to her mother. Mary finally snapped when she was seven and yelled back at her mother that she wasn't stupid, that she was in fact much smarter than her and that she hated her. That had earned Mary being locked up in her room for a month, or it would have earned her that if he hadn't let her out again as soon ashis wife had left the family wing. That woman cared about Mary so little by that time that she didn't even notice that he had undermined her punishment of Mary.

Mary had come out of her shell a little then, she started to speak to her grandparents then and to this day her granny is her closest confidant. Mary's mother wanted her to marry Patrick, his heir, but Mary never liked Patrick, and so she didn't accept his proposal. Mary's mother had of course been livid, had threatened Mary to force her and he had already made plans to get Mary away from Downton for some time when Patrick and his father sank along with the Titanic. Matthew, the new heir captured Mary's heart almost right from the start and he changed Mary for the better. They have been married for half a year now, Mary decided to not observe the period of mourning for her mother and he didn't find any arguments that would make her do so. He is glad he didn't stop her, Mary is happier than he ever thought she could be. She has slowly turned into the woman he always thought she was capable of being, smart, witty, intelligent and outspoken. He loves Matthew for making and more than that letting Mary find her true self.

He is brought back to the present when Cora gently touches his hand. "Darling, I know that you are just out of mourning and that you want to avoid a scandal at all costs."

"Yes and that's why what I have done was so stupid. Because coming here tonight was not exactly avoiding a scandal, was it?"

"Well, it is not going to cause one either. If Sam found out about us, he wouldn't tell a soul, so we are quite safe."

"He is friends with Matthew. He told me."

"I know. I suggested Matthew as a lawyer to him. I told him that I had heard very high praise for Matthew. I didn't think they would become friends though. But be that as it may, he wouldn't tell Matthew, even if they are friends."

"Good."

"Yes and no." He doesn't understand.

"What?"

"Robert, we won't be able to keep all this under wraps any longer. Or at least not much longer." He doesn't want to do that anyway, he wants to make her his wife but she doesn't know that yet, although she might expect it.

"We don't have to, do we? In a few months from now we can,"

"Robert, in a few months from now we will be the parents of the same child."

"What?" He has no idea what Cora is talking about.

"I am pregnant."

"What?"

"I am pregnant."

"How is that possible?" How? Their affair has lasted for eighteen years now and she has never been pregnant after Sam.

"How? You know when a man and a woman," Is she kidding him?

"That is not what I mean. I thought it wasn't possible for you to become pregnant again."

"So thought everyone else. Robert, I didn't lie to you, every doctor I went to, and it was a lot of doctors, told me that I couldn't have another child. But apparently all those doctors were wrong, because I am pregnant now and according to the doctor, it looks good in terms of the baby being healthy." He needs to sit down. He has been pacing the room until now, but he needs to sit down.

"What have we done differently?"

"Nothing."

"I can't believe it. Are you quite sure?" Cora now gets up and her hands are formed into fists and she looks at him very angrily.

"Yes I am. Would you like to hear about the symptoms? All the throwing up and the dizziness?" She knows he hates talking or even thinking about such things and he is sure that she does this to hurt him. But he is just so shocked that he doesn't know how to react.

"Cora, I am sorry. This is just something I never expected. For 21 years I believed that I would only ever have one daughter."

"Well, you'll have a second child soon."

"How soon?"

"Six months." Half a year. He has half a year to get used to the thought of becoming a father again. There will be another child in his life, he will be the father of another child.

"I haven't held a baby since Mary."

"It's not something you forget. You'll remember once you hold our child."

"Our child."

"Yes, Robert. Our child." He suddenly becomes dizzy, there are butterflies in his stomach and his chest is about to explode. He gets up in a daze, wraps his arms around Cora and looks into her eyes.

"I love you."

"Are you happy?"

"Happier than I have ever been." There are tears running down Cora's face now and he gently takes her face between his hands and kisses her. Gently at first but then more longingly. He doesn't know whether the tears on his face are his or Cora's, he doesn't care, all that counts is this moment, their happiness, their future.

"Stay, Robert. Please." He knows he shouldn't but he doesn't want to leave, he doesn't want to leave her, he wants to fall asleep with her in his arms and so he whispers "Yes" and much later that night, when he is still awake, but Cora is asleep in his arms, he is glad beyond words that he stayed because it has been the most wonderful night of his life. He has loved Cora for at least 18 and maybe even 22 years, he isn't sure about when he fell in love with her anymore, but he has never felt that love so deeply, so all encompassing.

He groans when the alarm wakes him at 5:30 in the morning and Cora complains about being pregnant and left alone, but he knows that she is still asleep, so he just gives her a kiss on the forehead, puts on his clothes from the night before and hopes that he will be able to leave the house and get home without anyone noticing. The house is quiet when he comes downstairs and he is almost at the door and glad that he has made it when he hears what is unmistakably Sam's voice.

"Good morning, Lord Grantham." He almost freezes on the spot but then turns around and looks at Cora's son.

He has hard time not to fall over laughing. The distinguished Earl of Grantham is trying to sneak out of the house at 5:45 in the morning, wearing last night's clothes. But he needs to keep his composure; he can't appear like a careless little boy, so he stops himself from laughing. The Earl just stares at him in bewilderment, but there is also fear etched on his face.

"Lord Grantham, if you went into the first room on the right hand side of our guest wing, you'd find more suitable clothes for the morning. They were brought here from Grantham House last night. Get changed now and then you and I will have a chat. In the breakfast room. My valet is up, so if you need any help, just ring for him."

"Thank you." He knows the Earl is utterly flabbergasted, but when he saw his mother taking the Earl into her bedroom last night, he had been sure that the Earl would still be here in the morning and it just wouldn't do for a man, for any man to leave Suffolk House in last night's clothes. Moreover, he thinks that his chat with the Earl will be better if the Earl feels more comfortable.

"Thank you, Duke, for your help," Lord Grantham says when entering the breakfast room 45 minutes later.

"You are welcome." He is not going to make the first move. He doesn't mind that the Earl stayed the night, if he is right and this affair has been going on for years, then he is even glad about it, but he thinks the man should suffer a little nonetheless.

"I really am sorry about this."

"Are you." It is not a question.

"Yes."

"So you are sorry for having an affair with my mother. And don't tell me it was only this one night. I know it was more than that."

"I am sorry for having caused you trouble. And for possible bringing a scandal down on you."

"Lord Grantham, for how long have you and my mother been, well, lovers?" He wants to know how serious this is and how honest Lord Grantham is.

"18 years."

"That's a long time."

"Yes."

"Why?" He knows why. Because his mother and the Earl love one another deeply, he is sure of this, his mother would never have agreed to become anyone's mistress if it hadn't been out of a desperate and deep love. But he wants Lord Grantham to say it.

"Would it stretch your believe if I told that it was out of love?"


	3. Chapter 3

AN: Thank you for all the wonderful reviews! I really appreciate them.

Kat

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"Not at all. It would rather explain a lot. It is a reason as to why my mother agreed to being your mistress, for lack of a better word. I don't like calling her that, don't worry and I know that she is more than that to you, but it explains why she would do something like that."

"Don't be angry with her." Why would he be? His mother is an adult, she didn't cause a scandal and even if she had, they could have lived with that.

"Should I be angry with you?" He isn't really angry with Lord Grantham either, he knows that in many ways this man has made his mother rather happy. Not perfectly happy, but that had been due to very unfortunate circumstances, circumstances that could not be helped for many years but that have changed now.

"Yes. I take complete blame for this." How chivalrous.

"How ridiculous. It was her doing just as much as yours."

"I know this must be hard for you, but please, your mother and I, I don't know how to explain it." He feels so sorry for the poor man that he decides the let him of the hook.

"Lord Grantham, I have had the suspicion that my mother was having an affair for over four years now and I was also almost sure that the affair had been going on for much longer than that and I was also sure that a man she would be willing to have an affair with for years and years must be a very good man. I had no idea it was you until we had lunch yesterday and I was surprised to say the least, because although we had never met, I had heard about you of course and not only from Matthew. But what I know about you from Matthew fits my estimation that you must be a very good man."

"I don't know what to say." The poor man looks totally confused.

"What I am trying to say is that I don't mind. I am not angry at you."

"Your mother and I have committed adultery for almost two decades."

"Are you trying to make me like you less?"

"No." Well, the man is not successful.

"I don't care whether it was right in the eyes of the law or the church what you have done. I want my mother to be happy, that is all."

"I want her to be happy too." He believes Lord Grantham without a doubt.

"Has she told you about" he stops himself because if his mother hasn't told Lord Grantham about the baby yet, then he doesn't want to take that from her.

"The baby? Yes. But I thought you didn't know. That is what you mother said."

"She hasn't told me yet, but I live with her. Lord Grantham, I don't mean to be presumptuous, but neither my mother nor you are married."

"I'll propose, don't worry. I've been thinking about it for months, I just didn't want to do it too early. But I'll do it soon. Very soon."

"Good. It'll make her happy."

"I think so. Might I ask you something?"

"Sure." Lord Grantham smiles at him again and he wonders why.

"How did you know that it was me?"

"Because there are only two people in the world who have ever called me Sam."

"What?"

"When we had lunch yesterday, you called me Sam. My mother and my, well, future wife, are the only ones who call me Sam. And Lilly only calls me Sam because she heard my mother call me that. But my mother would never call me Sam when talking to me to someone who she wasn't very close to. She usually refers to me as 'the Duke' or William. So there was only one reason why you would call me Sam. My mother must be very close to you and as she has never mentioned you to me, I knew she must have had a reason and the reason, well, it is obvious."

"I am sorry for calling you Sam. I don't know why I did that, but it was presumptions and I," Why doesn't this man stop apologizing? Because he really doesn't care.

"Lord Grantham, please stop apologizing for everything you have ever done in your life. You called me Sam because you have heard my mother talk about me for 18 years. I am not a stranger to you, although we only met yesterday. But you probably know quite a lot more about me than anyone besides my mother does."

"She knows a lot about Mary too."

"I'd like to meet her. Matthew has told me about her of course, but I think we should all have dinner together. You and my mother, Lady Mary, Matthew and I. How about tomorrow? You'd have time to break the news to Lady Mary and Matthew then."

"I am not looking forward to that."

"I don't envy you the task. But I doubt they'll be too shocked. And I will break the news to Lady Elizabeth."

"Who?"

"The woman I want to marry. Lady Elizabeth Shackleton."

"Oh, you are going to propose to Lilly?" This takes him by surprise. How does the Earl of Grantham know his future wife?

"What?"

"Her grandmother is a good friend of my mother. Lilly and Mary sometimes spent time together when they were younger."

"I suppose you don't fancy breaking the news to your mother either."

"No. She'll have my head. She'll say 'Robert, I thought you'd be more sensible than that. How could you. I won't ask you why you didn't think about what you were doing, because apparently you lack the ability to think.' Something along those lines."

The Earl now looks like a little boy and he has to laugh about him but apparently the Earl doesn't seem to mind and begins to laugh too.

She wakes up to an empty bed beside her and because she knows that she won't fall asleep again, there is just too much to think about, she decides to go downstairs to have breakfast with Sam. She doesn't need to do her hair for that, as long as it just them, she sometimes joins him for breakfast without getting her hair done or being dressed what society would call 'decently'. She just puts on a blouse and a skirt and braids her hair. When she walks past the table in the entrance hall that the mail is usually placed on, she sees that there is a letter for her and she picks it up and begins to read while she is walking towards the breakfast room. What she reads astonishes her rather a lot and so without looking up or greeting her son she says

"Sam, you won't believe it. Your uncle wants to get married."

"To whom?" She thinks that her mind must be playing tricks on her because it sounded as if both Sam and Robert had asked that question, but that can't be. When she looks up and sees that they are both sitting at the breakfast table, looking quite jovial, she is so surprised that she drops the letter.

"Robert, what are you doing here? I thought you went home. I thought that's why you set the alarm so early."

"Yes Mama, he did. But I anticipated that and caught him before he left. He couldn't very well leave this house wearing last night's clothes. I ordered for some of his clothes to be brought here from Grantham House last night."

"You knew?"

"I am neither deaf nor blind, so yes, I knew."

"Deaf? What did you hear?" She is mortally embarrassed now.

"You two walking past my door. Nothing else, Mama." Sam rolls his eyes at her now and she wants to swat him but only shakes her head at him.

"Well, I better leave now, there is something rather important that I have to do today."

"She'll say yes. The two of you have been in love for four years. She's waiting for it."

"Yes. But I will have to tell her about all of this before I ask her. She has to know what sort of family she is marrying into. Although I doubt she'll be bothered too much." She doubts it too, because she knows that while Sam is certainly very careful and she can rely on him not producing a child before he is married, she also knows that Lilly has spent more than just one night in his room. She should have stopped them, but it would have felt wrong to her. How could she tell her son to not spend the occasional night with the woman he loves when she spends two or three nights a week with a man married to another woman? So she just made sure that Sam knew how to careful by handing him a book that Robert had first recommended to her, and then because she was too embarrassed, also bought for her.

"She'll say yes. But still, good luck."

"Thank you." She watches her son leave and thinks how weird this all is. He is about to get married and she is having a second child. But it must just as weird for Robert. Mary has been married for some time after all.

"How are you?" he asks her.

"A bit sentimental. He is an adult about to start his own family. But to me he sometimes still is a small boy. I know he really isn't, and I would never treat him like a child but," she stops speaking because she can't put her feelings into words.

"I know what you mean. I am very happy for Mary and Matthew, but sometimes I still see a little girl in Mary."

"I'd like to meet her."

"You will at dinner tomorrow. Sam has invited her, Matthew and me. I am not looking forward to telling them about us, but I will have to do it before tomorrow night, so I best just do it today."

"What do you think they'll say?"

"About us? Nothing. Mary hated her mother, she won't mind. But they won't be too happy about the baby. Because should it be a boy, Matthew wouldn't be my heir any longer."

"I hadn't thought about that."

"I feel rather guilty towards Mary and Matthew."

"Even if it was boy, he could only be your heir if the child was legitimate."

"Oh, it will be. Unless you don't want it to be. Cora, the only reason I haven't proposed to you yet is because I haven't come up with a good way to ask the question yet. I've been thinking about it for months, in truth ever since the day she died. But I want to do it in a meaningful way, because that is what you deserve." She smiles at this and takes his hand. Of course she knew that he would propose to her eventually and she also guessed that he puts himself under quite a lot of pressure to make it perfect.

"Robert, I love you and I know you love me too. We've been together for more than 18 years, you are the father of my child. I don't need a huge proposal, you don't have to go through any trouble."

"I know I don't have to, but I want to because that is what you deserve. I made you my mistress for almost two decades because I couldn't get a divorce. Now that I am free and can finally make things right, I want to do it perfectly, I have got 18 years to make up for." She has to fight rolling her eyes at this. He always feels so guilty about their affair. It isn't his fault. It was his father and father-in-law who tied the prenup so tight that divorce wasn't possible. And she always could have said no, she could always have backed out.

"Robert, I was a more than willing participant. I knew what I was getting myself into after that first night, you were honest with me right from the start. And I didn't really care. Of course I would have preferred to be your wife instead of your mistress, but that just wasn't possible. But the alternative just wasn't possible either, for neither one of us. And you did make me very happy, don't ever doubt that. So stop beating yourself over the head with it, please darling." He squeezes her hand and smiles at her.

"I do love you. So very much. I just wish this wasn't so complicated."

"It isn't complicated. Sam obviously doesn't care and I am sure that he would love to have a brother or a sister. And Mary and Matthew will be happy for you as well. They got married for love, not because Matthew is your heir. And even if he isn't any longer, neither one of them will lose their position in society with Mary being your daughter and the step-sister of the Duke of Suffolk."

"My mother will have my head."

"She'll get over it."

"I better leave and get telling Mary and Matthew out of the way. Now that I have to do it, I'll feel much better once I have actually done it."

They both get up and before Robert leaves the room he holds his hand out to her and she takes it. He pulls her close to him and wraps his arms around her.

"I love you, my darling," he whispers in her ear, kisses her and then leaves.

"I hope it is understood that no one will breathe a word of any of this," she says to the head butler who has been in the room for the past ten minutes.

"Of course not your Grace. Although I will be sorry to see you move to a different house."

"His Grace will stay. And it won't be long before Lady Elizabeth will stay here too."

"I know it is impertinent, but I may offer my sincerest congratulations your Grace?"

"You may. And thank you very much. Please tell my maid that I am ready to get dressed now."


	4. Chapter 4

His heart is hammering in his chest. He has no idea how Mary and Matthew will react, he doubts that they'll be very happy, but he has to get this over with. Telling them does not get any either by stalling. So when he gets home and he finds both of them in the sitting room, he joins them.

"There is something we have to talk about, but please let me talk first, because it is rather difficult for me to say this."

"Are you sick Papa?"

"What? No." Maybe he should have chosen a different beginning. Maybe he should have asked Cora how to do this. She is much better at such things, but of course she was the lucky one who did not have to tell her child at all, because Sam found out with anyone telling him.

"Mary, don't worry, I am not sick. This is about something else. I am going to get married again and"

"Oh Papa, that is good news. I didn't know you were in love and,"

"Mary, let me finish please. I am going to get married again and yes I will marry a woman I love. I've loved her for years, decades really and now this is the part that will concern the two of you the most: She's pregnant. We didn't think it could happen, it didn't happen for 18 years but now it did, and we were just really lucky that it didn't happen any earlier." The words just tumble out of his mouth without cushioning the blow. Although he really wouldn't have had any idea how to cushion the blow. He really should have asked Cora for advice.

"If that child was a boy, then I wouldn't be your heir anymore." Matthew looks rather hurt.

"No. And I am sorry about that. I hope it is a girl and as I said it didn't happen for 18 years, Cora was sure she couldn't have another child and,"

"Another child? Is that other child yours as well?"

"No, of course not. Her husband just died a few weeks before her son was born." Matthew is staring at him as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"Matthew, I am really sorry, and if that child turns out to be boy, I'd still support you any way I could and certainly not only for Mary's sake but for yours as well."

"It's just a lot to take in. I am sorry, Robert, I will be happy for you eventually, but right now I just can't wrap my head around it."

"That's quite alright."

"Papa, I am happy for you now. It doesn't matter to me whether I will be Countess of Grantham one day. But tell me about the next Countess. Have I seen her somewhere?" He isn't sure that Mary is actually saying what she really believes or whether she just wants to be nice to him. He hopes that she isn't lying; he doesn't want to make her unhappy.

"I don't know, but it is possible. It is the Dowager Duchess of Suffolk."

"William's mother?" For a moment he has to think who William is, but then remembers what Sam, he can't help but think of him as Sam, told him.

"Yes."

"Oh, that's why he came to me. I thought his mother had actually heard good things about me. Well, that won't go to my head then."

"Matthew she did hear very good things about you. From Papa. And the Duke did make you his lawyer in all other matters well, didn't he? So he must be very satisfied with your work."

"Mary, I don't think you understand. The recommendation I was most proud of has turned out to be some sort of hoax and that hoax might actually lead to me not being the next Earl."

"But you don't really want to be the Earl. I thought William and you had some grand plans with your law firm." This takes him by surprise, he didn't know about this. But he doesn't want to interrupt Mary and Matthew's conversation.

"We do, but in principle"

"Matthew, that is just stupid. You always were the heir presumptive, never the heir apparent. And yes, maybe, there will be an heir apparent soon. But would that really matter to us? It wouldn't really change anything. We wouldn't lose our position in society, because if that child was a boy, I'd be both the sister of the next Earl of Grantham and the step-sister of the Duke of Suffolk. And think about your career, your plans for the future. You are the lawyer of both the Earl of Grantham and the Duke of Suffolk. Over the course of the last few months you've seen what that means for you. Many of those people who came to you, who even invited you to their parties didn't even know you also were a future Earl. And you don't care about such things anyway. Not really Matthew."

"You are right Mary, of course you are right. Robert, I am sorry, I just was, I don't know what I was."

"Matthew, I understand." He really does and it wasn't a lie when he said that he hoped for a girl. He loves Matthew like a son, and he would feel bad about taking the Earldom away from one son to give it to another. Matthew has done so much for him and Mary, he deserves to be his heir.

"When will we meet the Duchess?"

"Tomorrow. Her son has invited all three of us to dinner."

"That's nice."

"He is very nice, Mary. I wouldn't have become friends with him if he wasn't. You will like him."

"And you know his fiancé. It's Lilly Shackleton."

"I haven't heard from Lilly for ages."

"I suppose you'll see her tomorrow. If she says yes. I don't suppose she'd be there if she said no, but Cora was sure she'd say yes."

"What?"

"He is going to propose to her today."

"How do you know that?"

"He told me. Or rather he and Cora talked about it while I was in the room."

"So there you have it. My mother has had an affair with the same man for over 18 years and now she's pregnant with his child and she will marry him, but that is only possible because of his first wife's death." Lilly looks at him rather taken aback.

"Who is this man then?"

"The Earl of Grantham."

"What?"

"I couldn't believe it either at first, but that's the way it is."

"So your mother will be the Countess of Grantham then."

"Yes."

"And she will probably live at his estate."

"I suppose so."

"We'd have the house to ourselves. At least for a little while before we had children. It might not be bad for us to have some time for ourselves, we know each other well, but we will still have to get used to being married. And I will have to get used to being a Duchess." He knows that he is staring at her incredulously. Apparently she has planned out half their lives without him proposing to her and he wonders why she is so sure of it. But then again, he thinks, they've been in love for four years, they've seen each other almost every day for the past three months and society is bursting with the anticipation of the announcement of the engagement of the Duke of Suffolk and Lady Elizabeth Shackleton. But still, he can't help but tease her a little.

"So you are going to be a Duchess? Which Duke do you think is going to propose to you?" All the color leaves Lilly's face and it occurs to him then that she has spoken without thinking.

"Oh dear God, I am so sorry Sam. I shouldn't have been so presumptions, I," he puts a finger to her lips and she stops her rambling.

"Would you like to be a Duchess?" His heart is beating so fast it is making him dizzy.

"I'd like to be your Duchess," she whispers.

"Well then," he says, kneels down in front of her and takes the ring he put in his pocket that morning into his hand.

"Yes," she says. She is driving him mad. In a good way, but she is driving him mad.

"Will you let me ask the question please?"

"Alright. Ask me then." She has already said yes but still he is nervous, probably because he knows that this is something he will only do once in his life.

"Lilly, I love you. Very much. I have loved you for four years now and I know that my feelings for you won't change. I want to spend my life with you and I hope that one day you will be the mother of my children. So, will you marry me?"

"Yes," she says again.

"Mama, we'll have one more guest tomorrow night," he says by way of greeting his mother when he walks into the sitting room.

"She said yes then."

"Yes." His mother gets up and gives him hug.

"Congratulations my dear boy. I am very happy for you."

"Thank you. Lilly's coming over here later today."

"Is she?" There is a twinkle in his mother's eye and he wonders whether she guessed what he and Lilly agreed upon.

"Yes."

"Have I invited her to stay here until the wedding so that you two could get used to each other?"

"Maybe." His mother knows him too well.

"And I suppose I told you that Robert and I would only be too happy to have both of you at Downton when we are married but you are not and cannot live by yourselves in the same house?"

"You were very nice Mama."

"Robert doesn't know about this."

"You could tell him."

"I will have to, won't I? After I apparently invited both you and Lilly to Downton for an indefinite amount of time."

"Not indefinite. We'll get married once you've had the baby. We thought in about seven months or so."

"Sam, you are aware that Robert and I will have to get married very soon and that that would mean Lilly and you living at Downton for quite some time?" He knows this and he feels uncomfortable, but the alternative makes him even more uncomfortable, it has made him uncomfortable for four years now.

"Mama, Lilly isn't happy at her home, not at all."

"I know that and I will talk to Robert. I promise. After all, it wouldn't be the first time that I have invited her to stay with us for several weeks. Only that this time it will be several months."

"Thank you."

"The dinner went well."

"Yes." She smiles at Robert and she can see the relief on his face. She never had any doubts that Robert and Sam would get along rather well, and they both knew that Sam and Matthew had been friends for a little while and Mary had seemed genuinely happy to meet Lilly again. The unknown factor had been how Mary would get along with her. While Mary was rather distant with her, she was nice on a broader level and Cora is sure that eventually Mary and she will get along very well. She doesn't blame Mary for her attitude, the poor girl has had to live with a mother she hated for two decades, so that it is only natural that she is wary of any woman about to marry her father, even if said father hasn't even proposed yet.

"It was very nice of Sam to invite us all to stay here for the night. I hope he knows that this will most likely lead to gossip." She has been thinking about that too and actually thought about stopping Sam, but then she didn't really see why. There will be gossip about them anyway.

"Well, he likes you very much."

They are out on the balcony, looking down the street and she wonders if she should tell him what Sam asked of her, really asked of them, but Robert hasn't really proposed yet and she would feel uncomfortable talking about their marriage as if it was something they had already agreed upon. Robert is now standing behind her, with his arms wrapped around her, his hands resting on her stomach, on their child, really.

"Cora, I love you," he says and then fleetingly kisses her cheek. "And I am so sorry for everything you've been through because of me. I wish I could have made this right earlier but I can do so now. I know that you would be giving up rather a lot, but I love you and I want to be with you. And I want us to raise our child together." He gently nudges her now so that she turns around and looks directly into his eyes for a brief moment. He then kneels down in front of her and although she knew this was coming, she knew when he told her that his wife was dead that he would propose to her once he was out of mourning, it still makes her feel unbelievably excited and happy. Robert now takes her right hand in his left and she can't stop the tears for falling.

"Marry me. Please."

"Yes."

They stay out on the balcony for what feels like an eternity, just holding onto each other, and when they finally walk back inside, she is surprised to hear laughter from the drawing room.

"They are still up."

"Should we tell them now?"

She hesitates for a moment. It would be nice to keep this a secret for a day or two but then again, all four of those young people in the drawing room know about the baby and those four are probably the only people in all of London who will not gossip about them.

"Yes. It's what they expect. It's what we have told them would happen."

Their children's and children-in-law's reaction are what they expected; they all seem to be very happy for them and congratulate them in a very heartfelt manner. The four of them then returned to their game of chess, which they were apparently playing men versus women and the boys are losing spectacularly until Robert takes pity on them and helps them. They still lose, but not as pitifully as they would have without him.

"You have endeared yourself to Sam tonight. With the game."

"Well, he isn't very good at it, is he?"

"No. Actually he is rather pitiful."

"I wonder how two young men as intelligent as Matthew and Sam can be so bad at chess. Especially Matthew must think strategically all day long, but they were playing without a real strategy."

"I don't know. Maybe they just lack the practice."

"Yes. But Mary is very good at it. She and Lilly did have a strategy and I am sure they agreed on it beforehand."

"I am glad they get along so well."

"They used to be friends when they were younger. But eventually Lilly's parents stopped visiting us. Mary wrote to her a few times but never got an answer."

"Lilly's parents are difficult."

"I know. That is why she is staying here, isn't it?"

"Yes. I invited her. She is a lovely young woman but she doesn't get along with her parents or sister very well. She likes her grandmother, I think."

"Her grandmother is a friend of my mother's."

"Robert, I told Sam I would ask you if both Lilly and he could stay with us at Downton until they are married. You don't have to say yes, but"

"Yes. Why shouldn't they stay with us? It might be a big help for you if they did. Mary and Matthew are always running back and forth between London and Downton, so it might be nice to have Lilly and Sam stay put."

"Thank you, darling."


	5. Chapter 5

She glances around herself surreptitiously. She knows it isn't necessary, she can read whatever part of the newspaper she likes, but she doesn't want the servants to know that she reads the gossip pages. When she is sure that there is no one there, she turns to the first gossip page and almost spits the tea she has just drunk all over the table.

_Dowager Duchess of Suffolk to marry Earl of Grantham_

The article says something about Robert having spent at least two nights at the Dowager's house and he and the Duke arriving at the Palace of Westminster together and having lunch with Matthew. She wonders if it is true. She is fairly certain that Robert has had an affair for years; he was a lot happier than he should have been in that dreadful marriage of his. At one point he just started to ignore his wife and never really acknowledged her again. He hardly ever talked to her, but he still spoke to Mary about love when she reached an age at which this was necessary. She can't blame her son for taking it up with another woman, his wife was dreadful and she cheated on him continuously. Robert spent two or three days away from Downton every week and always claimed business in London and that he would stay at his club. Patrick followed him there a few times, but Robert never was at the club. She and Patrick then went over all the accounts to find out if Robert had established a living for a mistress somewhere, they wouldn't even have faulted their son for that, they were to blame for his horrible marriage, but they never found anything in the accounts and as there were never any rumors, they decided to let the matter rest. They had almost been sure that Robert's mistress must have been a wealthy woman, considering that he didn't seem to spend any money on here, however, she can't very well imagine the Duchess having been Robert's mistress. But she needs to get to the bottom of this now that there are rumors and thus travels to London.

When she arrives at Grantham House the butler tells her that Robert is gone but that Mary is in the library and that she has a visitor. When she sees that the visitor is Lilly Shackleton, she knows that the rumors are true, because Lilly Schackleton will eventually marry the Duke of Suffolk, she knows that from Lilly's grandmother. She does not want to burden Mary with admitting rumors about her father though, the poor girl has been through so much and she hardly trusts anyone, so making her talk about her father's infidelity would probably not help matters.

Instead she talks to Lilly who happily and quite unabashedly tells her that the Duke of Suffolk has finally asked her to become his wife.

"That will make your grandmother very happy."

"Yes. And my parents too. Although they will be happy for very different reasons. I think Granny will just be happy because she knows that Sam and I are in love, while my parents will be happy about me becoming a Duchess, although I couldn't care less about that part."

"You are quite like your grandmother."

"Yes. She is the only one who accepts me the way I am, who doesn't mind me being outspoken and a little tomboyish. Well, her and Sam's mother."

"So you know the Duchess then?" Of course she knows that Lilly knows the Duchess, but she can't be too open about that.

"Yes. She is very nice."

"Hello Mama."

"Robert," she says and turns towards her son. "Mary, Lilly, would you leave us for a moment?"

"Of course." The girls get up and she can't help but notice the rather sympathetic look that Mary throws her father and he shrugs his shoulders at her as if to say 'I have to do it at some point'. She waits until the girls are gone because she really doesn't want to make a scene and she wants to talk about this to her son alone. So she gets out the newspaper, points out the headline in the gossip section to him and asks

"It is true then?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"I don't know yet. Soon. Very soon."

"Robert, you have to wait a little." He is out of mourning but he can't get married again right away, there would be even more gossip.

"We can't wait."

"You've waited for almost twenty years. Oh, don't look so surprised. Did you really think that your father and I didn't suspect that you were having an affair? We just never asked you about it because you were intelligent enough to keep it under wraps. Although we didn't know you made a Duchess your mistress."

"Mama, please don't call her that. She is more than that."

"Is it love then?"

"Of course it is. Why would I have an affair with the same woman for almost twenty years if I didn't love her?" She has to smile about this despite herself.

"Good. I am glad about that. But you have to wait a few more months Robert. I know that you are probably tired of hiding, but you can be a bit open about it now. But please don't marry her right now, you are making yourself and her and probably her son very unhappy if you are causing a scandal now."

"We'd be causing and even bigger scandal if we did not get married now." The teacup she has been holding falls to the ground and she scrutinizes her son. He wouldn't be that stupid, would he? When she and Patrick first talked about Robert possibly having an affair she voiced concerns about him fathering a bastard, but Patrick had dismissed those concerns, had told her that Robert was a sensible boy and that he knew how to be careful.

"Well, I won't ask you why you didn't think about what you were doing because you apparently lack the ability to think." Robert has the audacity to chuckle about this. "This is no laughing matter, Robert."

"No, but you just said what I told Sam you would say when he asked me what I thought you would say."

"Who is Sam?"

"Cora's son."

"The Duke?"

"Yes."

"I suppose that boy is not your son."

"Of course not."

"How can you be sure that the other child is yours?"

"What?"

"Well, the Duchess obviously doesn't seem to mind going to bed with married men." Her son now looks daggers at her and for the first time in her life that she is afraid of his rage.

"Mother," he never calls her that. She has gone too far, she knows that, but she is so disappointed in him. How could he have been so careless. She'd understand if he was twenty, but he is in his forties, he really should have been more careful. "Of course the child is mine. Cora would never cheat on me. She isn't my mistress, she has never been. I have loved her for twenty years and she feels the same about me. And if it hadn't been for you and your insistence on me marrying an English woman, I'd have married her more than two decades ago." Suddenly it all falls into place for her. She knows who this woman is; she just never made the connection and for a moment she forgets about Robert's stupidity.

"She is that American girl, isn't she? The one you begged your father to be allowed to marry."

"Yes." Robert's voice is hardly steady anymore and she can see the tears in his eyes. She hopes that he won't start to cry in earnest, because she wouldn't know what to do then.

"Oh Robert, I am sorry, I am so sorry. I should have, we should have"

"Stop it. You being sorry doesn't help me. It won't give me back the past 22 years of my life. But I wasn't unhappy, not after I had met her again."

"Will you be happy now?" She hopes that he will be. She loves her son dearly and she has regretted making him marry a woman he didn't like just because she was a 'proper choice' for more than two decades now. The fact that he hated his wife so much is also the reason why never had any more children, why she never had more than the one grandchild. And while she is certainly disappointed about Robert having fathered a child out of wedlock, she can't deny that she is looking forward to having another grandchild.

"Yes. Very happy." All her son's rage seems to have vanished and a smile breaks across his face.

"Well, that's something. Now if that baby was a boy,"

"then he would be my heir. But don't you dare tell Cora that I need a son. Because I don't. I have an heir."

"A fourth cousin." A grandson would be wonderful. She never put any pressure on Robert to try to have another child with his first wife. That woman started to cheat on him before Mary was a year old and Robert had to make sure to not be presented with a bastard, so he couldn't do his duty. But this is something different.

"A fourth cousin who is married to my daughter and who I love like a son." She of course sees the grandson she never had in Matthew, he made Mary so happy and he will be an excellent earl one day, but a much beloved son-in-law cannot be the same as a son for Robert or for the succession. She wants to argue her point, but Robert makes motion that indicates that he does not want to discuss this with her and for once she gives in to his wishes.

"Does Rosamund know about any of this?"

"No, but I will tell her soon. I can't very well get married without telling my sister."

"It won't be huge wedding, I suppose." She hopes that they'll keep it as quiet as possible. There will be gossip enough about them without a huge wedding attended by hundreds of guests.

"No, it will be a family affair. There won't be many guests. Sam, Lilly, Matthew, Mary, Isobel, Rosamund and you."

"I am glad you will include me," she says almost spitefully, but only to hide her true emotions, because she doesn't really deserve to be at that wedding. She ruined her son's life after all, although she would never openly admit to it.

"When will I meet her?"

"She is coming here for dinner tonight."

"And the Duke?"

"He will come here too, I suppose. Lilly is already here after all."

She watches her son and his future wife together later that night and the happiness that is visible between them makes her wish that she had just let Robert do what he wanted to do a quarter of a century ago. She remembers all her reservations towards that American girl, she was first of all American, she laughed too openly, she was too outspoken and she had a horrible mother. The girl is of course still American, she still laughs openly and she still is rather outspoken, but Violet can now see why this is good for her son. That American has a disposition to be happy, maybe that is what kept Robert sane during the two decades of his horrible marriage. And the girl doesn't mind opposing him or anyone else and she thinks that a wife who sometimes tells her husband that he is going too far is something that every aristocrat needs. She still isn't happy about Robert having fathered a child without being married, but he isn't the first one, and maybe, just maybe, society will think of this whole affair as a great romance. She certainly does, even if she would never admit to being a romantic. Although she did cry when Mary and Matthew got married.

* * *

AN: For those of you who asked for a little drama: That is coming up in the next chapters.

Thank you for all the lovely reviews! You rock!

Kat


	6. Chapter 6

They are married only two weeks later in a modest ceremony in the village church in Downton. The church is filled to capacity nonetheless because apparently every one living in the village has come to see him get married again. He doesn't mind though, all those people wish them well and he thinks that it is probably good that the people living in the village are part of the wedding, that they see that this time he married a nice, friendly woman he loves. Cora shows an unbelievable amount of patience when for some reason all the people who were at the service want to congratulate them personally. It takes over two hours, but she smiles at each and every one of their well-wishers and she briefly talks to those who want to hear more than a 'thank you very much'. He thinks that within the four hours that was their wedding ceremony, their greeting of well-wishers and their drive back to the Abbey, which was flanked by people waving at them, Cora has endeared herself more to the community than any other countess or earl for that matter ever has.

He thinks, he knows that he has never been as happy as today when they finally reach the Abbey and walk inside as husband and wife. Quite contrary to what he had planned, their children seem to have hired an orchestra and the entrance hall has been turned into a ball room. The actual ball room would have been far too big for the nine people they are, but the entrance hall serves its purpose.

"Are you happy, Papa?" his daughter asks him when he dances with her.

"Yes, my darling girl." Mary smiles at him and then says

"I know this is the wrong way around, but please accept my advice. Whenever you fight with Cora, remember this day. Remember how happy you were. It helps to put things into perspective." He laughs at this. Mary is right, this is advice he should have given her on her wedding day, but he couldn't give her that advice.

"Thank you Mary. I will heed," someone taps him on the shoulder and when he turns around he sees that it is Carson who has got a very grim expression in his face.

"Telegram for you your Lordship. The boy bringing it said that you should open it right away." So he lets go of Mary and opens the telegram with a beating heart. He is sure that someone has died, he has no idea who and for a very brief moment he thinks that it can't be that bad as the people he loves the most are all in the entrance hall of his house, but he berates himself for that thought only a second later. When he reads the telegram, he unconsciously grabs Cora's hand and only realizes then that she must have walked towards him after Carson interrupted him.

"Stop the music," he says and then looks at Cora first and then the rest of his family. "We are at war with Germany." He sees Matthew and Sam look at one another and the two then leave the house together and when they don't reappear until dinner, a dinner that should have been a celebration of his and Cora's marriage, the first time that she took her place as the Countess at the table, and he sees the looks on their faces, he knows what they have decided. He wants to stop them, wants to tell them that they can't leave now, that now that there is finally happiness in the family, they have a duty at Downton. But he can't tell them that, he went to war himself, and he knows that if this war isn't a very short war, and he doubts that that is what it'll be, then he will probably go himself, eventually.

"I am sorry," he says to his wife when he walks into her bedroom at night. It is their first night at Downton, their first night in a new set of rooms. "I wanted this to be a night to remember." Cora laughs a strangled laugh at this.

"We will remember it, don't worry." He sits down next to her and takes her hand.

"I wanted this to be a happy day." She smiles a faint smile at him and squeezes the hand he is holding.

"It was happy until you got the telegram."

"Maybe I shouldn't have said anything. It wouldn't have made a difference."

"Robert, the look on your face told everyone in the room what was going on. You couldn't have kept it a secret, even if you had wanted to."

"I suppose not." He has now put an arm around her and she leans against him. "I thought this night would be different."

"So did I. But we just have to accept it. At least we got married before the war started."

"Yes."

"Sam and Matthew are going to volunteer, aren't they?" Cora's voice is shaking while she asks this but there is no reason to lie to her.

"Yes, I am sure of it. I saw it in their faces."

"What about you?" He won't lie about this either.

"Not before you've had the baby."

"And then?"

"I don't know. But probably yes."

"Well, at least this time around I am your wife. I don't have to rely on lists of the dead in the newspaper."He still feels guilty about going to war in South Africa and only contacting Cora twice within the two and a half years he was gone, but he didn't dare write to her more often. The two letters that he did send, he addressed to her son and still he had been asked each time by his superiors why he wrote to a duke who was a child. Both times he claimed business matters that actually the agent of the duke's estate had to deal with but that the correct way to deal with this was to write to the duke himself, but he was never believed. He thought about addressing his letters to Cora directly and just admit that she was a dear friend, but he could never be sure who would use the information to sell a story and make money and so he really didn't have any other choice.

"I know it was horrible for you, but there was nothing I could do."

"I know, darling. I am not blaming you. It was just very difficult. I missed you so much and there was no way for me to know how you were. I wish you wouldn't go, but I would understand if you did. And I thank you for waiting until after the birth."

"You are welcome." He kisses her briefly, but doesn't do anything more because he knows it would be wrong.

"Come in," Cora answers the knock on her door. "Oh, hello Sam."

"I was wondering, but if you," Sam looks somehow unsure about what to do.

"If there is something you want to talk about, go ahead."

"Thank you, Lord Grantham." He has to talk to the boy about addressing him that way. It makes him very uncomfortable. He just tries to not address Sam directly, because he just can't bring himself to call him 'duke' all the time, to him the boy is Sam and he could just call him that if Sam finally just started to call him Robert. But Sam is the duke and so this is his choice. Or it should be but he thinks that as Sam's mother's husband he should have some say in the matter. And after all, he will be the father of Sam's younger sibling.

"Mama, I was wondering how insistent you were on going on your wedding journey tomorrow." He had forgotten all about that. They are supposed to leave for Scotland tomorrow. He wonders whether they should still do it.

"Why?"

"Because I am going to join the army. But I will go to war a married man. And that means that I have to get married very soon."

"Sam," Cora starts, but the boy shakes his head.

"No Mama, don't argue. It's what Lilly and I both want. She is not happy about me going to war, but she understands why I have to do it. She, like me, thinks that we should get married first."

"But that means that you will have to get married within a few weeks."

"Yes."

"You won't have a huge wedding then. It would have to be very small."

"I don't care. A wedding at the registrar's office would be enough for us. But we'll do it in church if it is possible. I will enquire about that tomorrow, because I am sure that we are not the only ones."

Sam and Lilly get married in the village church in Downton only two weeks later. They chose the church at Downton because Travis was willing to perform the ceremony and it was the easiest way for them to get married. They could of course have gotten married in London, or even at Sam's estate, but that would have complicated matters and in Lilly's words all that was important was that they got married at all. Again there are spectators, although the atmosphere is rather subdued. The first men have left for war already and Sam and Matthew leave only two weeks after the wedding.

Lilly offers to leave Downton and go back to London the next day, but both Mary and Cora beg her to stay and so she does, and not unwillingly.

She is glad beyond words when Lilly stays, not only because she loves Lilly like a daughter but also because her relationship to Mary is still rather distant and she has the feeling that she took Robert away from Mary. Lilly and Mary get along very well and thus she doesn't feel too guilty about monopolizing quite a lot of Robert's time.

One evening in December she finds herself alone in the sitting room with Mary. The girl looks at her unsurely and makes to leave.

"Mary," she says. "Stay, please."

"I don't want to bother you," Mary replies but she thinks that it is an excuse. Mary is wary of her.

"You are not bothering me, Mary."

"Alright then. Why would you like me to stay?"

"To talk to you."

"What about?" It is hard for her not to ask Mary to not make things difficult but she knows about the difficult relationship Mary had with her mother and so she doesn't push it.

"I don't know. Nothing in particular. We have just never really spent some time together."

"We have dinner together every night."

"That is not what I mean."

"I know that. Cora, there is nothing we could talk about."

"That's a pity."

"I know what you are trying to do. But I suppose that my father told you a little about my mother and I just am not very comfortable with all of this." He told her everything and she feels so sorry for Mary that sometimes all she wants to do is hug the girl and tell her that everything will be alright, just as she used to do with Sam when he was still small. But Mary is an adult and she should treat her as such, no matter how hurt Mary sometimes still looks.

"I am sorry about that. I didn't want to make you uncomfortable."

"I know. And I am happy for Papa. You are making him very happy. I have never seen him like this. I just wish that Matthew was here too."

"Are you worried about him?"

"Are you worried about the Duke?"

"Of course I am. I am sorry Mary, that was a very stupid question."

"You just wanted me to talk to you and I can't hold that against you."

"Thank you for that. Mary, I just want you to know that I am here for you. To you it seems as we have known each other only for a few months, but to me it seems as if I have known you for two decades. Your father always talked about you. I don't think we ever spent more than an hour together without him talking about you." Mary looks surprised at this.

"Really? He talked about me?"

"Of course he did. He was, he is very proud of you. He loves you very much. And he used to be very worried about you."

"And he talked to you about it?" Mary reaction surprises her.

"Of course he did."

"I thought that he wanted to forget about everything when he was with you."

"No. Not at all. Your father would never want to forget about you."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"What does it feel like to be pregnant?"

"It is a slightly weird feeling, but not unpleasant."

"Matthew wants a child."

"And you don't."

"I am not sure. I am scared of turning into my mother. I am scared of being a horrible mother and a horrible wife. Although I suppose that it doesn't matter right now. Matthew just mentioned in his last letter that he would like to have child once the war was over."

She takes Mary's hand in hers and holds on to it even when Mary insticitvely tries to jerk it away.

"You aren't a horrible wife. You love Matthew."

"But I am not as, I don't know, gentle towards him as you are to Papa."

"No. But you and I, we are different people. And I am pregnant and because of that more emotional than I normally am. But that will happen to you too, should you ever be pregnant. And I think that you would be a very good mother."

"How can you be so sure of that?"

"Because I know a lot about you." Mary only smiles at this for a moment, but then says

"Thank you."

They keep on talking, mostly about trifles, but she thinks that some of the distance between them has been crossed and over the course of the following days it seems to her as if the distance between her and Robert's daughter got smaller every day.

"Robert." He doesn't want to wake up. He and Cora and the girls stayed up too long last night and it is still night, he doesn't know why Cora thinks he has to get up now, he doesn't care.

"Robert, it's time."

"No. It is still night."

"Robert, the baby is coming." Now he is awake.

"What? It wasn't supposed to happen for another four weeks."

"The baby is coming now. Telephone Dr. Clarkson, please."

He does as he is told and when the doctor comes and after examining Cora tells him that at the moment everything seems to be alright, he goes into the library, where he is joined by Mary. They hardly talk but that suits him well, he supposes the reason Mary doesn't say much is that she knows that he is not really in a mood to talk.

They sit in the library for hours and he finds it strange that no one ever comes to them to tell them about the progress of the birth. He doesn't know much about such things, but when Mary was born, he was told how it was going every hour so. He hopes that everything is going well but knows that it is not when the doctor finally comes to see him more than five hours after his first examination of Cora. The doctor looks tired and worried and he knows that despite Clarkson's initial estimation, not everything is going well.

"What is it?" he asks the doctor.

"I am sorry."

"What are you sorry about?" He is afraid of the worst now.

"Lord Grantham, there are problems. Serious problems. If you want to talk to your wife one more time, you have to do it now." His world begins to spin and he can hear Mary gasp, but he doesn't really take it in.

"What?"

"Your wife is about to die. She is asking for you and I think you should go."

"What about the baby?"

"The baby hasn't been born yet. It is breech and it doesn't look good for the child either. Should your wife die before she has delivered the child, the child will die too."


	7. Chapter 7

AN: Somehow FF does not like my update rate and the chapter wasn't posted correctly. I am sorry if you got an alert for the same chapter twice.

Kat

P.S.: Thanks for all the reviews!

* * *

She sees her father go pale and freeze on the spot, she knows he doesn't want to go, but she also knows that he would regret it for the rest of his life if he missed the chance to say goodbye to the love his life. So she walks towards her father and tells him to go and when he realizes who has talked to him, he nods and goes upstairs. Once her father has left the library, she sits down on one of the sofas and breaks down in tears. She feels so sorry. Sorry for Cora who must be in horrible pain, sorry for her little brother or sister who won't ever get to meet his or her mother and most of all sorry for her father who will lose the love of his life and possibly a child. And if the child survives, he will have to raise him or her by himself, just as he raised her almost by himself. She decides then to help her father any way she can should the child live. She will help him raise the child, her father won't have to do it alone. Cora said she'd be a good mother and she wants to believe her, she has to believe her. She will miss Cora very much, the distance between them has become smaller over the course of the last few weeks, she has actually started to trust Cora and she had hoped that eventually Cora would have become a mother figure to her. She had hoped that there would be another woman besides her grandmother whom she could trust without reservations. But that won't happen now, because Cora will die, at least if the doctor is to be believed.

She is not a very religious woman, in fact she isn't sure that God exists, but she has taken to praying for Matthew and Sam and she now prays for her unborn sibling and for Cora. While she sits with her head in her hands, the library door opens and Lilly walks in.

"It is not going well then." Lilly doesn't ask a question.

"Dr. Clarkson says Cora won't make it. There is a danger that she'll die before the child has been born and then the child will die too." She says this without any emotion; she doesn't want Lilly to know how much this touches her. Lilly sits down next to her and takes a deep breath.

"She is like a mother to me. I don't get along well with my own mother, my parents have only tolerated me the past four years because they knew that I would eventually be a duchess. Now they parade around, telling everyone about me, but they don't really like me personally. I am not what they wanted a daughter to be, I am the opposite of my older sister who is all our parents want a daughter to be. But Sam's mother is just so accepting of everyone. I will miss her very much and I dread to write to Sam telling him of his mother's death. It will knock the stuffing out of him." She turns to Lilly and sees the tears in her eyes. Lilly is just as scared as her.

"Should the child make it, I will help my father raise it."

"That is very nice of you Mary. Sam will be thankful. He was looking forward to having a younger sibling. Maybe you could write to him from time to time. About the child, should it live. I am sure he would like to see his sibling sometimes as well." For a moment she has now idea what Lilly is saying but then she understands.

"Lilly, regardless of what happens, you won't be asked to leave. And once this bloody war is over, it will be up to you and Sam what you want to do. Even if the child should die too, you and Sam would still always be welcome here." Lilly now smiles a faint smile at her.

"Thank you Mary. I am sorry about not answering your letters, but my parents thought that,"

"I know what they thought. My grandmother told me."

"I will help you. With the baby. Should it live."

She can't hold her tears in any longer and so she just lets them fall. Lilly then hugs her and begins to cry too and they sit on the sofa, holding onto each other, crying and being afraid. Afraid of Cora's certain death, afraid of the baby's death, afraid for their husbands' lives.

He knew that Mary was right when she told him to go to and see Cora. He needs to say goodbye to her but he is scared of it, because the moment he does say good bye will make it final. And he can't live without her. He is not sure what he will do once she is dead. It probably depends on whether the child lives. Should the child not live, he will join the army and go to the front immediately and hope to be shot dead. If the child lives, he has no idea what to do, although he might still join the army, go to the front and hope to be shot dead, he would just feel a little guilty about it. But according to the doctor, it is very unlikely that the child will live anyway.

When he enters the room, the first thing he sees is all the blood and he vomits onto the carpet right away. He sees Cora writhing in pain on the bed and then he hears her scream and he wishes she didn't have to go through this, for a moment he considers telling Doctor Clarkson to end it right now. She won't live, the child most likely won't live either, why should his darling wife have to suffer so much. But he knows that Clarkson wouldn't and couldn't do it, at least not as long as there is a tiny chance of the child's survival.

"Robert," Cora almost screams and then he walks over to the bed, kneels down next to her and takes her hand.

"I am here my darling. I love you."

"I am sorry. I didn't want this to happen. I'll try to hold on until the baby,"

"Shh. Don't say it. I know. And I love you for it even more than I already do. And I am so sorry for what you are going through."

She smiles a very weak smile now and he is sure that it is the last smile she will ever give him.

"I love you too. And I am glad that we were happy. Will you stay with me please? Until it is over?"

"Of course, my darling." The doctor raises his eyebrows at him but he just shakes his head and doctor shrugs his shoulders. He holds onto Cora's hand and whispers to her, although he doesn't really know what he is saying. Somehow this seems to relieve the pain a little, although she is obviously still in a lot more pain than she should be and she cries out in rather frequent intervals. He knows he will have nightmares about this until the day he dies, but he won't leave his wife.

It takes hours but eventually there is some progress. "The baby has finally turned. Lady Grantham you have to push." She nods but he knows that she is too weak and her attempt is rather meager.

"Lady Grantham, you have to push."

"I can't," she says and them looks at him. "Robert, I am sorry, but I can't. I am in so much pain." He kisses her hand, looks at her and then says

"It is very hard, but just one more push darling and then it'll be over. It will all be over. You can just let go then." There are tears running down his face and he knows that he has just given his wife permission to die, but he can't bring himself to beg her not to die. He doesn't want her to die, but she is in so much pain and few more minutes or even hours won't change anything.

He holds her hand during that one last push and it feels as if Cora was breaking his bones but he doesn't care.

"That's it," the doctor says. "We've got the child." It takes a moment until he hears the baby cry, but he doesn't turn towards the sound of the cry. He keeps looking at his wife, whose eyes are still half open. She is breathing heavily, every breath hurts her more than the last one and he knows that she is bleeding because someone keeps saying "We've got to stop the bleeding." He wishes that would stop because he thinks that it is making Cora feel worse than she already feels.

"Lord and Lady Grantham, you are the parents of a healthy girl." A healthy girl. Cora smiles another smile at this.

"Good," she says and then her eyes fall shut. He keeps holding her hand as her breaths become more shallow.

"Dr. Clarkson, do with the baby what you have to do and then let a nurse dress her and then please bring her here."

"Lord Grantham," he looks up for the briefest moment.

"Do as I say." He knows he is unkind, but Cora is still alive and maybe, just maybe, but he can't finish the thought, it would make the pain worse.

He keeps talking to his wife, he still doesn't know what he is saying, but somehow he thinks that she knows that he is still there. He wants her to know that, he promised to stay until the end.

"The bleeding has stopped," the doctor says and he nods without really taking it in. Cora is still breathing and he has to concentrate on her. Eventually the door opens and a nurse says

"Your daughter, Lord Grantham." He looks up for the first time since telling Dr. Clarkson what to do.

"Give her to me." The nurse looks at him questioningly. "I know how to hold a baby."

So his daughter is passed to him and he takes her and thinks that he has never seen anything more perfect or beautiful.

"Is there anything else that can be done for my wife?"

"No," the doctor replies.

"Then please leave us alone."

This time he doesn't have to say anything else. He gives his daughter a kiss on the forehead and says "I love you, my girl," before he carefully places her on Cora's chest. He takes one of Cora's hands and puts it on their daughter, he doesn't let go, because he knows that Cora is too weak to hold her by herself. But he is sure that she knows what he has done because her face relaxes a little.

"She is perfect, darling."

"She is yours," Cora says hardly audible.

"She is ours," he replies. He knows what Cora meant, he will have to take care of her on his own and his plans of joining the army and being shot dead at the front vanished into thin air the moment he heard his daughter cry for the first time. He has to be there for her, no matter how hard it might be. He has decided to call the girl Cora, but he won't tell his wife this.

"I am tired, Robert."

"Then go to sleep my darling." She only nods and her breathing becomes even shallower but also more even and it isn't stopping. He keeps holding her hand and their child and he watches them for what feels like an eternity. Eventually the nurse comes in because the baby needs to be fed and he asks the nurse to bring the girl back as soon as possible. He tells Cora why their daughter isn't with them when she begins to stir and somehow that seems to calm her down. He puts their girl back onto Cora once the nurse has returned her and Cora's breathing eases again. Eventually he becomes so tired himself that he knows that he won't be able to kneel next to Cora's bed and to hold their daughter in place any longer.

So he takes the child and says "We won't leave," and then places two chairs next to Cora's bed. He sits on one, puts his feet onto the other, puts his daughter onto his chest, holds her with one hand and takes Cora's hand in his other hand. He knows that if he falls asleep he will wake up holding his dead wife's hand but at least this way they will have spent one night together. Cora, him and their baby girl.

The baby cries twice during the night and the nurse comes in each time and takes her away for a short while and when she returns the second time, Cora is still alive. So he asks for Doctor Clarkson but the doctor shatters all the hopes he has tried to keep at bay anyway.

"She won't live. She has got no chance. She lost too much blood and she is too weak. It is a miracle she has held out this long. But she will die within the next hour."

He only nods and sits down the way he did before. This time when he takes Cora's hand, she squeezes it and it drives tears into his eyes, because the moment she does, he knows that he will never feel her squeeze his hand again.


	8. Chapter 8

While he holds his wife's hand for the last time, he can't help but think back to their first meeting. He was eighteen then, she was nineteen and they met in a ballroom. He was looking for a wife with enough money; she was looking for a man who would give her a title in exchange for money. He danced with her four times that night, far too often in his mother's eyes, and Cora had been the first woman he thought he could be at least content with for the rest of his life. She was outspoken and witty, she didn't try to charm him by carefully batting her eyelashes at him, she laughed at his jokes openly, although only if she found them funny. He met her several times after that, in fact over a period of almost three months he saw her four or five times a week and he had been preparing for a proposal and she had been waiting for one. That was until his parents, mainly his mother, interfered, telling him that he couldn't marry an American, that there was an Earl's daughter with a large enough dowry available and that he should propose to her. To get his parents' nagging out of the way, he met that Earl's daughter twice and found her rather repulsive. He even told Cora about her. But his parents had been insistent, had stopped him from seeing Cora, had threatened all kinds of things should he not do as they wished and what they wished was for him to marry that Earl's daughter because that would not cause a scandal. He went to his father, the day before his parents expected him to propose and begged his father to be allowed to propose to Cora. His father asked him whether he loved Cora and because he was too young to realize what he felt, he had answered what he thought was a truthful 'no'. His father then argued that if there was no love involved, there was no reason for him to marry an American if there was an English woman available as well. He then did what his parents asked; he made the biggest mistake of his life. He thought about backing out every hour of every day after that Earl's daughter had accepted him, he almost did it, and he had already formed a plan, when one morning he read about the engagement of Cora Levinson and the Duke of Suffolk in the newspaper. It drove him to tears, but he stopped thinking about running away with her then. The day he got married to that Earl's daughter was the worst of his life and the first years of that marriage were nightmarishly horrible, and not only because of his wife's treatment of Mary. He hated his life and if it hadn't been for Mary, he would have just left Downton, probably never to return, but he couldn't leave his girl and nor did he think that he could just take her away and make her live like an outcast.

His life changed for the better one fateful day in June a few years later, when he and his wife had been invited to a private ball in London and his wife claimed a headache and said she couldn't go. He knew that she didn't want to go because she had arranged a meeting with her lover, but he didn't care. So he went to the ball, hoping to meet some friends and met the then already Dowager Duchess of Suffolk instead. When he saw her across the room, she smiled at him and he was pulled towards her by an invisible force. They danced several dances and by the end of the night he asked her to meet him in the park the next day and she agreed. They met every day for two weeks and for the first time he had the feeling that there was someone who understood what he was going through. When at the end of those two weeks, they were invited to the same house party, they both knew what was going to happen before it did. He took her outside, she willingly followed him, he told her how sorry he was and that he loved her, had loved her since seeing her for the first time and she told him that she understood why he didn't propose to her, that she thought that they had been too young to understand what was happening to them and that she didn't hold it against him that he married another woman. And that she loved him too. They had kissed then and it was like magic. At that moment he had known that he would start an affair with her and she later told him that she knew then too, knew that they would not only spend one night together.

Without talking about it, he went to her room that night and for the first time in his life really made love to a woman. He told her that there was no way for him to get a divorce, he had done everything there was to do and tried everything there was to try, but all to no avail. She understood and told him that she would much rather have an affair with him then not see him at all anymore and he agreed. By that time he had already known that she could never have any other children, so that had not been something they needed to talk about. For more than 18 years they met at least twice and often more than that per week, they met in different places, but usually they spent their time in a small secluded cottage on Sam's estate. Cora's two most trusted servants, both of them Americans incidentally, had known about them and had worked for them and they had managed to keep it all under wraps. He dreamed of making Cora his wife every night for more than 18 years.

He laughs dryly at that thought and wants to hit fate and destiny in the face because now that he finally made her his wife, now that they even have a child together, now that they are happier than they ever thought they would be, Cora, the love of his life, is to be taken from him. Their little girl, asleep on his chest, sighs in that moment and he wonders if she somehow knows what he was thinking about and if she feels the injustice of it all as much as he does. He looks at their daughter in wonder, because this little girl is a miracle in so many ways, and her even breathing calms him down and lulls him to sleep.

She wakes up instinctively and wants to act accordingly but then she realizes that her hand is being held rather tightly and realizes about a second later that it is Robert who is holding her hand. She looks at him, he sits in one chair, his feet rest on the other chair and their little, perfect baby girl is asleep on his chest, held securely by him. She stares at them in wonder. Even if she hadn't heard Robert talk about Mary for almost twenty years, she would have known now that Robert would be a very good father. No man who holds his little girl so securely and yet gently at the same time while he is asleep could be anything but a wonderful father. She sees their little girl stir and remembers why she woke up. Her daughter must be hungry and will probably start to cry within a few minutes.

"Robert," she says quietly. He doesn't react. "Robert," she says again, just a little louder.

"No," he mumbles. "Don't wake me."

"Robert, you don't really have to wake up, but you have to give the baby to me. You can go on sleeping then. But if you don't hand her to me know, she will wake up and cry and then you will wake up too."

"No. I am not giving her up."

"Robert, I am not strong enough to get her. You have to give her to me. Please, darling."

He finally reacts and turns towards her.

"I can feed her lying down." Robert just stares at her.

"If you don't hand her over now, she will start to cry." Robert finally hands her the baby without saying anything but he keeps staring at turns onto her side and while she does that, she realizes that there isn't a single muscle or bone in her body that doesn't hurt. She somehow manages to move her nightgown so that she can feed her daughter. Robert keeps staring at her, or rather at them now, as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing. She can see that he thinks that he should turn away, probably leave the room, but just can't.

"Darling you can watch if you want to. Don't be embarrassed."

"You are not supposed to do that," he says incredulously.

"Why not?" She is too tired to fight. And she is almost sure they talked about this. They got a nurse, but just in case.

"You are supposed to be dead. This must be a dream and I have to wake up." And then she remembers. The horrible pain she was in, she felt as if she was about to burst open, the doctor and two nurses talking about her certain death. She was sure she was going to die too because she felt the blood flow, she felt as if there was no blood left in her. She still feels in a daze but better. Remembering the pain she was in shows her how much pain she actually is in now, but feeling the pain means that she is alive.

"Robert, come and sit next to me, please." He does as she asks. "This is not a dream. I didn't die. I know I was supposed to but I just didn't. And I am almost sure that I won't, not now anyway. In forty years maybe, but not now."

"Cora, Dr. Clarkson said you lost too much blood. He said you had no chance."

"He was wrong. I did have a chance. A tiny, maybe an infinitesimal one, but it was a chance. And I took it."

"Consciously?"

"I don't know. I just didn't want to die. We've waited so long to be this happy. We were happy before, of course, you have made me happy for almost twenty years, but not like this. This is different and I just didn't want to give it up. And look at our little girl. She is perfect."

He does look at their girl and she is perfect, just like her mother. He has never seen a baby being nursed and it fascinates him. There is so much love in it and he feels an unbelievably strong urge to protect his wife and their child. He felt an urge to protect Mary when she was born, he still wants to protect her, but this is somehow different. He doesn't love this little girl more than he loves Mary, but somehow it feels different. Mary was conceived out of duty, but this little girl was conceived out of love. This little girl has a mother who loves her and he loves the mother.

"I love you. Both of you." Cora only smiles at him because she is about to fall asleep. "I know you want to sleep but I think Dr. Clarkson should have a look at you. He is still here I think. I'll get him." Cora nods while she strokes their daughter's cheek. Just when he reaches the door, she says

"I love you too."It makes his heart skip several beats.

"Carson have you seen Dr. Clarkson?" he asks the butler as soon as he sees him in the hallway.

"He is having breakfast, your lordship."

"Thank you." He doesn't answer the butler's unspoken question because he can't quite believe it himself yet. He is afraid that when he gets back upstairs, Cora will lie on the bed, lifeless. He is scared that he is still dreaming, that he will wake up and realize that Cora has died, that he has been holding on to a lifeless hand for most of the night. He is afraid that he will realize that he hallucinated, that he talked to Cora's dead body and imagined her answers. But something tells him that there is hope, that maybe it was real, that he will go back to Cora's room and she will be alive, taking care of their little girl. But he doesn't want to hope too much.

He is thankful when he realizes that it is only Dr. Clarkson in the breakfast room and that the girls haven't gotten up yet. He wouldn't want them to know about any dreams or hallucinations of his.

"She woke up."

"What?" The doctor looks up in disbelieve. "When?"

"I don't know. Some time ago."

"Why didn't you get me right away? You could have woken me."

"Because I talked to her and she wanted to nurse the baby."

"Nurse the baby? She can't do that."

"She can. I saw it."

"And she talked to you?"

"Yes."

"Was she coherent?"

"Yes."

"I don't believe it. Take me to her."

So he does. When he knocks on the door, Cora answers a tired but clear "Come in" and the doctor shakes his head. The baby seems to be done nursing and Cora has rearranged her nightshirt. She is laying on her back now, their daughter on her chest, the same way he put the girl there last night.

"Hello Dr. Clarkson," she says and the doctor almost jumps. "Robert, would you take her? She still needs to be winded."

"Yes,"he says. Dr. Clarkson now looks at him in surprise too but he only shrugs his shoulders. The doctor then returns his attention to Cora.

"Lady Grantham, how do you feel?"

"There isn't a muscle or bone in my body that doesn't hurt. And I feel as if I had been split open from the inside."

"You very nearly were. Lady Grantham, I have to examine you. Do you know that you lost a lot of blood?"

"Yes. And I also know how. So just do what you have to do."

He leaves the room because he doesn't want to irritate the doctor and when the man is done about half an hour later and calls him into the room, Clarkson tells them that he has no explanation for what happened but that he is quite sure the Cora will survive. It will take some time before she has got her strength back and she will be in considerable pain for a while, but that seems to be all.

Once Dr. Clarkson has left, he sits down next to her again.

"So you'll make it."

"Yes." This simple answer drives tears to his eyes and when Cora reaches up and wipes the tears rolling down his cheek away, he takes her hand and kisses it.

"We have to name the baby."

"I thought we decided on Julia."

"We did. I just wanted to make sure." He just wanted to make sure that there was no reason for him to call their little girl Cora.

"Robert, I am very tired."

"I'll let you sleep."

"Why don't you introduce Julie to her sister and sister-in-law?" Julie. They named the girl a minute ago and already she has a nickname. He supposes there is nothing he can do about it, there is nothing he wants to do about it.

"Oh dear God Mary. I forgot about her. She still thinks that you will die. I have to look for her."

So he carries Julia through his house while looking for Mary and eventually finds her in Lilly's room. The girls look heartbroken and he wishes he hadn't forgotten about them. They are both still in their nightgowns and seem to have shared a room.

"So the baby is alive" Mary says when he enters the room.

"Yes. You've got a little sister." Mary smiles a little at this.

"May I hold her?"

"Of course."

* * *

AN: I spent a long time debating with myself who I would want the baby to be. I considered her being Edith or Sybil, I even thought about twins, but in the end decided on another original character, because I think it fits this AU better and ties in better with the original, because at this point of the story both Edith and Sybil are adults in the original. (BTW: This is more or less the Julie from _Kiss Me_, so she is original but not totally new :))

I am going away for a few days and might not be able to update, that depends on the internet connection. This is not the end of this story, there are a few chapters and a little more drama to come, but I didn't want to leave you fearing for Cora's life for a week.

Thank you so much for all the reviews!

Kat


	9. Chapter 9

AN: The internet connection here isn't great, but it is working, so I won't make you wait.

This chapter is (mostly) fluff, but I thought it would be nice after the last few chapters :)

And there is drama coming up soon enough.

Thank you for the many reviews!

Let me know what you think about this one as well.

Kat

* * *

Her father places her little sister in her arms and it is hard for her not to cry. She has never seen anything so beautiful in her life and this one moment does away with her fear of becoming a mother herself. She will write to Matthew that she is ready, that she is looking forward to him coming home, even if only on leave and that they can start to make a baby of their own.

"She is beautiful," she says and looks up at her father.

"Thank you, Mary."

"Did I look like that?"

"No. You looked far more serious, even when you were a newborn. You may not look like me, but you are like me. This one looks like Cora and she is like her I think."

In that moment she remembers that Cora is most likely dead and she doesn't dare to ask the question and is endlessly thankful when Lilly does, even if she does so without forming a coherent sentence.

"Is Cora, I mean, how,"

"She made it. Nobody knows how, but she made it."

Without thinking about what she is doing, she passes her sister off to Lilly and hugs her father who hugs her back so tightly that she thinks he might be cracking one of her ribs. Out of the corner of her eye she sees Lilly leave the room and when the door closes, she feels sobs wreck through her father's body. Neither one of them is good at dealing with crying relatives, neither one of them cries often, she can't remember ever having seen her father cry, but now he does and instinctively she just doesn't let go of him.

"Mary, I am sorry," he says eventually and she answers "Don't be. You thought you had lost your wife and quite possibly also your child, how could you not cry?"

"I didn't cry over the last wife I lost."

"Well, she wasn't the kind of wife you would cry over dying, was she?"

Her father chuckles now.

"No, she wasn't."

"She wasn't a good mother either."

"No. You had a horrible childhood." There are tears in her father's eyes again, tears he doesn't need to shed. Her childhood wasn't horrible. Her relationship to her mother certainly was, she hated her mother, but her father and grandparents did their best to make her happy and they were successful. Her father catered to her every need and loved her with all his heart. He protected her whenever possible, he faced his wife's wrath over her more times than she can count. She knows that he constantly underminded her mother's punishments, she liked to lock her up in her room and her father usually came to her room to let her out only a few minutes later. And when her mother did something like that when her father wasn't there, one of her grandparents would get her out. For every time that her mother told her that she hated her and was disappointed in her, her father told her that he loved her and that he was proud of her. He spent almost as much time teaching her whatever she wanted to know as he spent taking care of the estate. When her mother was for some reason very mad at her, he'd just take her along when he went out on the estate, sometimes for a whole day. And he never left her alone. There were two or three days a week he wasn't home, but he never left her alone, her grandparents were always there. He just didn't leave when her grandparents were travelling, or he took her to Rosamund. When her grandfather had died and her grandmother had moved into the Dower House, she went there too when her father was gone. She never begrudged her father his time away from the estate, his time away from his wife and now that she knows whom he spent that time with, she is very happy that he had the chance to do so.

"My childhood was not horrible Papa. Parts of it were happy. I had a horrible mother but a wonderful father. And I am very glad I still have you. And that my little sister has got you too. And Cora."

"Do you like her?"

"Cora? Yes. I like her very much."

"Maybe you should tell her that."

"I will." She thinks that her father is right, she should tell Cora how she feels. Cora put so much effort into helping her adjust to the new situation that she deserves to know how Mary feels.

There is a soft knock on the door and Lilly walks in, carrying Julia. She thinks that the girl has probably been held all her life and she thinks that it is a good start. This girl is loved by everyone around her.

"How are you?"

"In almost unbearable pain." Lilly is the only one she can tell this. She doesn't know Mary well enough for confessing something like that and Robert would just worry too much. Lilly sits down on her bed and takes one of her hands.

"It is bad, isn't it?" She can't hold back her tears any longer. She is glad she is alive, she is happy she will see her daughter grow up and raise her with Robert, and spent time with their children and children-in-law and possibly, hopefully, grandchildren, but right now the pain is so strong that it is almost blinding her.

"I feel as if I had been split open. I can't move, I can hardly breathe. Every breath hurts."

"Mama, I wish I could help you." She smiles at this a little, although that hurts too. She allowed Lilly to call her 'Mama' in private about two years ago when it just slipped out and the girl had been so happy then. It makes her happy too, she is glad that her son married a woman she can think of as her daughter.

"I know."

"I am so sorry for you. Is there anything I can do for you?"

"No. But it is worth it." It really is and she has to keep telling herself that it is.

"Would you like your daughter back?"

"Yes." Maybe holding her little girl will help.

Once Julia is in her arms, she looks at Lilly again.

"Will you write to Sam?"

"Yes."

"Tell him I love him"

"I will."

"But don't tell him that I almost died. It would worry him too much. Don't say much about the birth. Just say that he is the older brother of a little sister and that Robert and I are very happy. He doesn't need to know more."

"I should tell Mary not to mention anything in her letters to Matthew. Matthew and Sam are in the same regiment."

"Yes."

"Would you like to sleep?"

"Yes. But I, forget it."

"What?"

"Nothing."  
"Mama"

"Would you stay? Until Robert gets back? I know I am asking too much, but there is writing paper over there and I just thought"

"Yes. I'll stay. And I will write to Sam and let you read the letter."

She falls asleep holding onto Julie for dear life because she isn't sure if she would wake up again if she didn't have Julie. The pain is too strong. When she does wake up, it is again instinctively and she is afraid for a second when she realizes that Julie isn't with her but when she looks to her side, she sees Mary sitting the chair that Robert occupied a few hours ago. Mary is reading a book, her feet resting on the other chair and she holds Julie the same way Robert did.

"Mary," she says and Mary turns to her and smiles.

"Cora," she says quite happily. "How are you?"

She can't answer this truthfully, so she decides to not answer at all.

"I think Julie will be hungry soon." Mary smiles an understanding smile, maybe it is too understanding.

"There you go then," Mary says and places the little girl in her arms. "I'll leave you to it."

"Would you get your father?"

"He is at Granny's house. I don't know when he will be back, but he left only a few minutes ago, so it might still take a while. Lilly went with him."

"Would you come back then? In 15 minutes?"

"Of course." Mary gets up and strokes her sister's cheek before she leaves the room. She wonders if she should have asked Mary to stay, but she thinks that the girl would probably have been very uncomfortable. She watches Julie for a while, but her thoughts keep drifting to Mary. She likes her, she is her father in almost every way. She has always felt sorry for Mary, ever since Robert told her about her after they had met again. Robert had always been so worried, not only about Mary's well-being, although that had always been on his thoughts, but during her teenage years, Mary almost turned into her mother and it took Robert quite a lot of effort to stop that development. But now Mary certainly is a daughter to be proud of and she knows that Robert is very proud of her.

"I brought you some broth. You have to eat if you want to keep feeding Julie yourself. The nurse said so and I think that she is right."

"Thank you Mary. Would you help me sit up?" Mary's hands are much gentler than she thought they would be but she is very glad about this because even Mary's gentle touch feels very uncomfortable.

"Would you like help with the broth?" She is surprised by this question too.

"No. I think I can eat by myself."

"Good. That'll make Papa happy. He was very worried."

"I know. I am sorry."

"He loves you very much."

"I love him very much too." Mary now takes a deep breath and she looks as if she was stealing herself to say something.

"Cora, I just wanted you to know that I am very happy for you and Papa and for Julie. Papa was, is, a wonderful father and I know that you are a wonderful mother. You two are an ideal match. And Julie is very lucky to have both of you. Please don't ever think that I begrudge her that. I love my sister and I want her to be as happy as possible."

"I would never think that you would begrudge Julie her happiness, Mary. I know you are happy for your sister."

"You put a lot of faith in me."

"It isn't undeserved. Mary, your father has told me everything about you during the last eighteen years. Sam and you were the topics of many of our conversations and I know that I have said it before, but I know you quite well because your father always painted a true picture of you. You are exactly what he described you to be. An intelligent, outspoken, lovely young woman. You try to hide your feelings sometimes, but they are there. You love with all your heart."

"I don't have a heart."

"Of course you do. You love Matthew and your father and your little sister and your granny."

"That is true."

"Then please don't say that you don't have a heart. Julie is very lucky to have you as her sister."

"Thank you. You are very kind."

"Maybe I am. But what I say is the truth."

"Cora, I," Mary shakes her head and stops to speak.

"What is it my dear girl?"

"I am glad you married Papa, but not only for Papa's and Julie's sakes, but for my sake too. I am glad that you have become part of my life because I like you quite a lot. I know it is shellfish," she has to make Mary understand that not everything she feels and does is bad.

"It isn't selfish and I am glad that you are happy. I would hate to be the evil stepmother."

Mary now breaks into loud laughter. "You could never be the evil stepmother," she says. "You are too nice and gentle for that."

"Maybe I am. I hope so."

"You are. I may not know you as well as you know me, but I do know you well enough to be sure that you could never be that."


	10. Chapter 10

AN: Thank you so much for all the reviews!

* * *

Three years later (December 1917)

"Where is your mother?"

"She went upstairs."

"I stayed behind for less than five minutes and she just leaves."

"Papa, she is tired."

"Maybe if she worked less"

"Papa, please. She has a lot do."

Her father stops talking now and leaves too, but she knows that it still bothers him. Cora took over the running of the convalescent home two years ago and she has the feeling that her parents' marriage has taken a down turn because of it. It didn't happen right away, but for the past few months it seemed to her as if her mother sometimes forgot that her father existed. She has to smile at that thought despite herself and the gravity of it. She started to think of Cora as her mother over a year ago, when Matthew had come home on leave for a few days and he woke up screaming two nights in a row. She begged him to tell her what he had dreamed of and he told her about the horrors of the war. And while it certainly had helped Matthew to deal with all of it, it made her life much more difficult, because now she couldn't stop herself from imagining Matthew in the trenches, being attacked, his life in danger every single day. It had almost made her fall apart, she cried for days on end and refused to eat, she shut her father out of her room, but eventually Cora had come to her and talked to her. She had been so kind and gentle and told her about how she felt during the Boer War, how afraid she was for Sam now, that she too kept imagining Sam and Matthew dead on the ground, even if she tried not to think about it. Mary then broke down completely and Cora held her and let her cry on her shoulders and then, without Mary having to ask for it, promised that she wouldn't tell a soul about Mary's reaction.

"Not even Papa?"

"No. Not unless you want me to tell him. But I thought that it would make you uncomfortable if he knew." Cora was right of course, she didn't want her father to know how she truly felt, it would worry him too much.

"No. Papa has worried enough about me for a lifetime."

"Mary, parents always worry about their children, that will never stop. Your Papa is always worried about you and so am I."

"Do you really worry about me?"

"Of course I do."

"Why?" She knew why, but she needed to hear it.

"Because I love you. I know you don't like to hear it and I am not expecting you to ever say something like that to me, but I do." Cora squeezed her hand then and made to leave. "If you need anything Mary, anything at all, come to me please," Cora said and then opened the door.

"Mama?" She was surprised by her own voice but when Cora turned around and smiled at her, she knew that would never regret saying it. "Thank you. For being there for me."

"You are welcome my darling girl," Cora answered and then left. They never mentioned that conversation again, she is sure that Cora knew that she would feel very uncomfortable talking about it and so she just let it rest. But she thought of Cora as her mother from that day on and it has made her happy, even though she sometimes thinks that that is silly because she is an adult.

Her father never commented on her calling Cora 'Mama', she supposes that her mother either talked to her father about it or that her father just knew how she felt and never questioned it.

"Mary?" It is Lilly's voice that brings her back to the present.

"Sorry. I got lost in my thoughts."

"Do you think we should do something?"

"About what?"

"Mama and Papa?" Despite herself, she has to smile at this too. Once she started to call Cora 'Mama', Lilly had started to call her father 'Papa', without his permission. He almost choked on his drink when Lilly did it for the first time and Lilly nonchalantly said "Sorry. I just thought it was easier. It all gets so confusing, with who is calling whom what. And you are my father-in-law, in a way at least. So I just thought it would be alright. But if it bothers you, I won't do it again."

"No, no don't worry. I was just a little surprised," her father replied and then patted Lilly's hand.

"That's settled then," Lily said and returned to her dinner.

"Mary" Lilly says again.

"I am not sure if we should do something. Or rather I wouldn't know what we could do."

"Give them a few days to themselves. We could handle everything by ourselves for a few days, don't you think?"

"Just you and I?"

"Yes."

"You are always so self-confident."

"Well, I snatched up a duke when I was sixteen. I should be self-confident." If she didn't know Lilly as well as she does, she'd be indignant on Sam's behalf now, but Lilly is laughing herself silly at this. Lilly certainly did not snatch up a duke, she fell in love with one and he fell in love with her.

"I suppose we could try."

"I think we should. And I think we should tell them to go away. If they stayed here, Mama would just work regardless."

"Where could they go?"

"I'll ask if that cottage on Sam's estate is still in a good condition." She still can't imagine her father spending two or three days every week in a small cottage with just two servants, but she also thinks that it is quite romantic and maybe returning there will actually help her parents find their way to each other again.

"Do you think he went to Mama now?"

"I doubt it. I am sure he wanted to check on Julie. She keeps having nightmares. Some of those soldiers have told her stories about the war, but she is too young to deal with them. I can hardly deal with them. And she knows that she has got brothers at war. She may hardly know those brothers, but they do write to her and she has met them. Maybe we should ask the soldiers to not tell her gruesome stories about the war."

"Yes."

"Has his lordship gone to bed already?" Mary has to bite her tongue to not ask that maid why she cares, but she supposes that Bates asked about it.

"Maybe. He will ring for Bates himself."

"I'll take the glasses then."

"Yes, thank you Jane." Lilly is friendlier than her, she wasn't even sure about the name of that maid.

"What's it to her whether Papa has gone to bed?"

"He wrote a letter of recommendation for her son."

"Why?"

"Because he is nice."

"Too nice if you ask me. He is playing with fire."

"Mary, this is not some sort of dirty romance novel." She hopes that Lilly is right, but it strikes her as odd that her father would write a letter or recommendation for a boy he had never met. But then again, her father is the nicest person she knows, besides Cora maybe.

"Let's hope not."

"Mary, don't you trust your father?"

"I do trust him. But he is bound to do something stupid or foolish soon and I just hope that it will be getting very drunk because then we could just help him deal with the hangover. Should he however start something with that maid"

"Mary, he did have an affair during his first marriage, but it was with Mama, the woman he loved. He still loves her, there is no doubt about it."

"I think he is starving for affection."

"Maybe we should talk to Mama before we send them on their way. Maybe we should tell her that we think that she spends too little time with him."

"Yes. We should. On a different note, I've had a letter from Sam. He says that he and Matthew are doing well. They will come home for Julie's birthday."

"I wonder how they managed that."

"I don't know, but they can both be rather persuasive."

Later when she is in her room, she wonders if she shouldn't talk to her father. She trusts him but she really does think that he is bound to do something very stupid and if he did something to ruin his marriage, he would regret it forever. She knows her father loves her mother, he loves her with all his heart and that is why her mother's seeming indifference to him hurts him so much. She knows that her mother isn't indifferent towards her father, she loves him just as much as he loves her, but she has gotten carried away by her work. Maybe she should talk to her mother too. Or maybe Lilly should do that, because she is much more open when it comes to those matters. She admires Lilly for her directness, it sometimes leaves her staring at her, but she often wishes she could talk about certain things as easily as her sister can. Of course Lilly isn't really her sister, but Cora isn't really her mother and neither Cora nor her father are a parent of Lilly's but still, she thinks of Lilly as her sister. They spent a lot of time together, they worry about the same things, and sometimes they even share a room, if one of them can't sleep because of the war. If there is one good thing that has ever come out of this war, then it is the family she has found during it. She would never have spent as much time with Cora, or her sister and father for that matter, if Matthew was home and they would always be running between Downton and London. Neither would she have spent as much time with Lilly, Lilly wouldn't live at the Abbey, she and Sam would live on their own estate. Sam writes to her regularly, in his first letter to her, he told her that he thought that as they were now brother and sister, he thought that they should get to know each other better. She thought that he was probably right and so she had replied to him and over the course of the last few years, she realized that she likes Sam quite a lot. And as he is the brother of her little sister, she has started to think of Sam as her brother too. Matthew told her several times that he would go mad without Sam to keep him grounded in the trenches and she thinks that some sort of brotherly bond has been formed between them as well.

They all love Julie to pieces and she is actually looking forward to being responsible for her little sister when they sent their parents away for a few days. Julie is such an engaging, bright child. She asks the most outrageous questions, she has already asked several times where babies come from and refuses to believe that they are brought by a stork.

"A stork can't carry a baby. And where would the stork get the baby?" she argued. Her father had laughed himself silly at that comment and later told her that she had argued the exact same way.

She thinks that she and Lilly should think about to do something special with their little sister when their parents are gone. When she falls asleep, she dreams of a better world.

She groans when the alarm rings and turns around because for just a minute she wants to be held by her husband before her maid will come and help her prepare for the day. But as has happened more often than not within the past few months, Robert isn't in bed with her. She is sure he is still asleep in his own room. She doesn't know what happened, but for some reason they have begun to sleep apart. She usually goes to bed before him, but it has often been that way and he used to join her anyways. Sometimes he would even wake her up again and they would talk or do other things. They haven't done 'other things' for weeks on end now, she is too tired at night, Robert still asleep in the morning and they hardly see each other during the day, although she has no idea what Robert could be doing all day long.

They agreed to turn the Abbey into a convalescent home two years ago and have lived with sick soldiers ever since then. She is running the house, together with Isobel, or at least she used to run it with Isobel, now she is doing so alone, because she and Isobel got into a fight and Matthew's mother left. For some reason Robert went mad at her for that, although what she argued for was to not change too much of the family's daily routine, something that should have pleased Robert. But maybe Robert had just been looking for a way to argue with her, it seems to be his favorite pastime these days. But whatever else could he be doing? He only sits around brooding and reading the newspaper. He never helps her, he never asks if there was anything he could help her with, he never asks if there is anything he could do for her. He used to cater to her every need, he used to cherish her, but now it feels as if she wasn't more than the woman who runs his house to him. This thought makes her mad, in fact it makes her so mad that she decides to wake Robert and tell him that it bothers her to no end that he only ever sits around and still doesn't think it necessary to spend some time with her in the evenings. It wouldn't kill him if he went upstairs with her at least from time to time. So she walks over to his room and without knocking opens the door and switches on the light. She regrets having done that the moment she looks at his bed because Robert isn't sleeping by himself.


	11. Chapter 11

AN: Thank you so much for the many, many reviews!

I received twenty reviews yesterday, 12 on this story and rest on some of my other stories and that is more than I usually get in a week. It made me so happy, I had to smile all day long. That number of reviews is of course also the best motivation for me to keep on wirting.

This is the longest chapter of this story, it is almost a thousand words longer than the other chapters and I thought about splitting it up, but it wouldn't really have worked, so I hope this is o.k.

Thank you again for all the support!

Kat

* * *

Julie is with Robert, he holds onto her protectively and she is sleeping soundly in his arms. Their little girl has been plagued by nightmares for weeks, the nanny told them that she cried almost every night, and then she realizes that maybe Robert went to bed in his own room because he had Julie with him but didn't want to disturb her. She turns the light off again, hoping that her stupid action didn't disturb Robert's or Julie's sleep. Her husband grunts when she leaves but doesn't say anything. While the maid gets her ready, she keeps thinking about what she saw. Robert takes such good care of their little girl and Julie loves her Papa dearly. Julie loves her too, she knows that and Julie says so quite frequently, but her Papa is her hero, there is no one she admires more in the world. She is glad about that, her little girl couldn't have chosen a better hero and if this means that in fifteen or twenty years' time Julie will be looking for a husband who is like her Papa, then they have nothing to worry about. Robert takes care of their two grandsons just as much. Lilly's little boy Jamie was born in November 1915 and one of the reasons why Robert was so against turning their house into a convalescent home was that at that time they had had two very small children at home and knew that those two would be joined by a third one in April 1916. Little George was in fact born at the end of February already, six weeks early and at that time she came close to regretting having agreed to Isobel's plan, even Isobel came close to regretting it.

Both Julie and Jamie had been very easy from their births on, but George was a different matter. He needed constant care, in fact he spent the first eight weeks of his life at a hospital in London where he had to be brought the day of his birth because he was too small and he wouldn't eat. Mary stayed with him in London day and night, it looked so bleak that Matthew was even given leave, but somehow the future Earl of Grantham made it through that difficult part of his very young life. But when Mary brought him home, it became apparent that George cried more every single day than Julie and Jamie did combined on really bad days, and the little boy's screams set the soldiers' teeth on edge. Some of them wanted George to be gone, one of the nurses even suggested Mary and George move into Crawley House, but Robert had put his food down. He had given the nurse a dressing down that everybody within the Abbey was able to hear and no one ever complained about George or the other children again. George eventually stopped crying so much and that makes all their lives a lot easier. Mary and Lilly are involved in running the house as well, which leaves Robert to take care of the children. When she comes to that thought she berates herself for having thought of Robert as sitting around and brooding all day a little earlier because that isn't true. He spends hours with the children every day, she knows he tries to make them forget what kind of world they live in, what kind of horrible things they see every day. He takes them on walks around the estate and he spends hours reading to them and playing with them. She knows it can't be easy to take care of three children under the age of three. Not really under the age of three, Julie will actually turn three next week, but it doesn't change the fact that Robert's life probably isn't any easier than hers.

He comes into the breakfast room when she is about to leave.

"Will you be here for lunch?" he asks without preamble. There is no good morning, no peck on the cheek, no 'I love you' and it almost drives her to tears.

"I don't think so, I have to go down to the hospital and I doubt that I will be home in time."

"I'll be all alone then. Mary and Lilly are going to some charity function that is aimed at collecting money for war orphans. They are taking George and Jamie with them, probably to show those rich ladies the future Earl of Grantham and the future Duke of Suffolk in the hope of making those ladies think about their daughters marrying one of those little boys and thus giving a generous amount of money."

"If it helps," she answers. She is sure it will help, she used Sam for exactly that effect until he was twelve. She is sure it was Sam's idea in the first place that Lilly and Mary use their sons like that.

"I'll be alone for lunch then."

"Have lunch with Julie."

"In the nursery." He looks at her flabbergasted.

"Of course not. Let her have lunch with you. She is well-behaved; I think you should be able to get through a lunch with her without the vegetables ending up on the ceiling."

"Maybe I will do that. Or you could just come home for lunch."

"I'll try."

"No you won't Cora. Don't lie to me." He looks so hurt now, she wonders what is going on inside of him.

"I am not lying. I'll try, I promise."

"You have no interest in spending time with me these days, I know that. I am an old fool who spends his time with little children to you," he says in a quite accusatory tone.

"No you are not. How can you think that?"

"I was only ever interesting to you as long as what we did was something we shouldn't be doing." He has gone too far now because this isn't true. They were blissfully happy until a few months ago, or they would have been if they weren't constantly worried about Sam and Matthew.

"Robert, that isn't true and you know it. I will leave now because I don't want to fight with you." Or let you see me cry over this, she thinks but doesn't say it.

She rushes things at the hospital, she tells the head nurse that she has an appointment somewhere else, she offends almost everyone by refusing to eat with the staff at the hospital, but she comes home in time for lunch. Carson tells her that Robert is in the nursery and so she goes there to tell him that she is back and that lunch is about to be served. When she opens the door, her heart breaks with the love she feels for the two people inside. Robert is sitting on a rocking chair with Julie on his lap and he is reading her favorite story to her. The girl sits on his lap sideways and clings to his shirt. Her eyes are about to fall close and she supposes that her daughter must have had a really bad night because Robert looks just as tired as their little girl. Neither one of them has noticed her and she wonders if she shouldn't just let them fall asleep but then thinks that it would probably be good for Robert and her if they spent some time together. So she walks over to them quietly and gently places a hand on Robert's shoulder. He looks up and smiles at her and it sends a shiver of longing down her spine.

"It is time for lunch, love," she says and he nods. Julie's eyes are now actually closed and without Robert saying a word, she lifts their daughter up and places her in her bed.

"She had a horrible night. She woke up four or five times. She keeps dreaming of the war. Some of the soldiers must have told her about it in excruciating detail. I think I should remind Dr. Clarkson that this house may be a convalescent home, but that it is also the home of three very young children. The soldiers should be told to not tell any of the children about the war. I know that especially Julie likes to get underfoot everywhere, but she is too young for those stories."

They are now out in the hallway and she takes Robert's hand.

"Let me help you with her nightmares. You look dead tired. Let me deal with her bad dreams for the next two or three nights. You have to sleep too."

Robert looks as if he wanted to argue but then only says "Thank you."

She deliberately sits down next to him at lunch instead of opposite of him and as soon as Carson has left the room, she takes Robert's hand again. "I love you," she says, looks into his eyes and is surprised to see tears there.

They finish lunch in almost complete silence, but when they are done, she takes Robert's hand again and leads him to their bedroom. He doesn't object.

"Robert I am sorry. I am sorry I gave you the feeling that I didn't care about you or our marriage anymore. I am sorry I hurt you. I'll work less, I'll find more time for you, I promise."

"Is that a promise you can keep?" He looks so uncertain.

"Yes." He takes her face between his hands and kisses her softly on the lips.

"Thank you for that." He then lets go of her, but she grabs his hands and pulls him close to her again.

"Thank you for taking care of the children. They'd be lost without you."

"I am not so sure about that."

"I am. And I love you."

"I love you too." They begin to kiss in earnest now and for the first time in weeks Robert takes her to bed in every sense of the word.

Later when she is in his arms and he is playing with her hair, she tells him that Sam has written and told her that both he and Matthew would be home for Julie's birthday.

"That's a lovely surprise."

"Yes. I was wondering if you could call the war office and ask them if they can stay for a little while longer. They both have sons they have hardly ever seen and it would be so lovely to have them home for Christmas."

"I'll try darling, but I can't promise I'll be successful."

"I know. But thank you for putting in the effort. I appreciate it." They don't say anything for a while until he asks her

"Won't you be late for your afternoon appointments?"

"I won't be late. I am not going. I told Carson to cancel them all for me. I need to spend time with you and with our older girls and their sons gone, it is just Julie and us, and I think that Julie will be asleep for some more time."

"You should think about waking her, or she will be up all night."

"I know. But I am glad that she is asleep. I will get through a night without sleep for her sake."

"If you are sure."

Robert was of course right, when it is time for Julie to go to bed, she claims that she is not tired and once Cora has gone upstairs after dinner, it only takes fifteen minutes until there is a knock on her door. She sends the maid away and lets her little girl inside and tells her to sit on the bed while she finishes her nightly routine.

"Mama, you are beautiful." She has to smile at that. Little girls always think their mothers beautiful.

"Thank you Julie."

"Will I look like you when I am older?"

"Your Papa certainly thinks so."

"Then I will. Papa is always right."

"Yes he is."

"Mama, when will the war be over?"

"Why?" She can't tell her little girl when the war will be over, but maybe she will now get to the bottom of those nightmares.

"Because I want Sam and Matthew here. It isn't fair that I have my Papa here, but Jamie and George don't have theirs."

"I wish they were here too." She misses Sam so much it breaks her heart. And in some ways Julie is just like him, she is just as inquisitive and while she thinks that is a good character trait, it makes her miss Sam even more.

"Lilly said there won't be soldiers in this house when there is no war."

"That is true."

"The soldiers tell me bad stories."

"Do they scare you?" Julie nods and there are tears running down her face. She walks over to the bed, sits down and puts her arms around her little girl. "Julie, those men have been through something terrible. And sometimes they talk about things to people they shouldn't talk to, at least not about the gruesome things they have seen. It is very difficult for them. But you can always come to me or your Papa."

"Papa was in a war too."

"Yes. It was horrible."

"I am glad he is here now."

"Me too, my darling girl, me too."

"Will you read to me?"

"Of course."

She reads to her from the book _The Dutch Twins_. She thinks that Julie must know all six stories by heart now, because she has read them to her at least ten times, Robert has probably read them to her twenty times, both Lilly and Mary have read them to her and Julie sometimes even gets Carson to read to her from the book. The only person she never asks to read to her is her nanny.

"Cora darling, wake up. Just for a moment."

"What?"

Robert is sitting on the bed next to her.

"Let go of Julie for a moment, so you can lie down. I'll put Julie down then. If the two of you keep on sleeping sitting up, you will both be in pain tomorrow." She knows he is right.

"Thank you darling."

"I put the book on your night stand."

"Hm."

"Cora, you have to move. You are on my side of the bed."

"Hm."

"Cora. Just a bit, please."

She moves further into the middle of the bed, with Julie lying on her right. She turns towards her daughter instinctively and only when Robert puts an arm around her from behind and she feels the weight of his body press against her own does she realize that he chose to sleep in her room rather than in his own.

"I love you."

"I love you too."

There still isn't really enough room for him in the bed, but he knows that Cora tried to make room for him. Julie tends to take up a lot of space and Cora was only half awake at best. He briefly thinks about sleeping in his dressing room, but when he puts his arm around Cora, he has to hold onto her or he'd fall out of the bed, and feels the warmth of her body against his own, he realizes that he would prefer an uncomfortable night sleeping next this wife and child than a comfortable one sleeping on his own.

Julie begs them to have breakfast with her the next morning and because she is such a good girl, they agree. Both Lilly and Mary are that the breakfast table too, although that surprises him, they like to have breakfast together in Mary's room.

"We've got a surprise for you," Lilly says and smirks in a way that makes him rather apprehensive.

"We thought you deserve some time away. Just the two of you. We will run the house and Julie can help us take care of the boys. You would like that Julie, wouldn't you?"

"Yes." He thinks that Mary is a genius.

"Where would we go?" Cora asks and he thinks that is a valid question, considering that there is a war going on.

"To your cottage on Sam's estate. I telephoned them yesterday, if you don't arrive before four in the afternoon, they'll have it ready for you. They'll send a cook and a maid and you can decide whether you want to bring your valet and lady's maid. It's all up to you."

"For how long will we stay?"

"Three days. We don't really know for sure when Sam and Matthew will be back and we wouldn't want you to miss their arrival."

So they leave in the afternoon and arrive at their cottage just in time for tea. It looks the way it always did and somehow it makes him feel like home. Coming back here is a reassurance of the continued love he and Cora feel for one another.

"I've missed this place, Robert. I know it is stupid, but I did." Cora is in his arms, drawing lazy circles on his chest and he enjoys it quite a lot. It makes him forget about the world.

"I've missed it too. It used to be where we were happiest for many years."

"Are you happy now?"

"Cora, what do you think? Of course I am happy. I've got everything I ever wanted now. The only thing that bothers me is that horrid war. I wish Matthew and Sam were home."

"They will be soon. And maybe you can get their leave extended to the new year."

"Maybe. But let's not think about that. The girls did not send us here to brood over things we can't change."

"No. They wanted us to have some space. And some time for just us."

"It's what we need, isn't it?"

They spend the rest of that day and the following day in blissful happiness that lets them forget all their quarrels and troubles. While they are already on their way to bed, there is a knock on the door and when he opens it and sees Mary's tear-streaked face, he knows that something terrible must have happened.

"They are lost. Both of them. Sam and Matthew were on a patrol behind enemy lines. They should have been back three days ago, but they never returned. The war office telephoned and told us that they were most likely dead and that we should not hope for anything else."


	12. Chapter 12

AN: Thank you for the many reviews!

Kat

* * *

They don't bother to pack their things, they ask the maid to do it for them and to send them to Downton later on. Mary cries continually on their way back and he wonders why, but when he is about to ask, Cora shakes her head and whispers "Remember that Matthew was home four months ago," into his ear. For a second he wonders what Cora is trying to tell him and then he understands. So he isn't too surprised when Mary starts to throw up half way through their journey and without flinching, he holds her hair when she does.

"I am sorry Papa," she chokes out but he just shakes his head.

"Try to sleep darling," Cora says but Mary looks at her as if Cora had ask her to fly to the moon.

"My husband is missing. He is most likely dead. And so is your son. Don't tell me that you could sleep now."

"No, you are right. I couldn't. But try to take care of yourself a little. Try not to lose your head. I know it is easier said than done." He can see that Cora is hardly able to hold it together herself and he feels incredibly sorry for her. His treatment of her over the last couple of months was despicable, he had been in a huff because she had less time for him, but she did so much good work. She did get caught up in it a little, but he should not have held that against her. And now she may have lost her son. And he has probably lost his son-in-law in the process. He has to stop thinking about it, or he won't be able to hold it together any longer either.

When they arrive at the Abbey, Lilly waits for them in front of the house, with George in her arms and Julie and Jamie standing next to her. He then realizes that if Sam really was dead, they would have a two year old duke in the house. He takes George from Lilly and the girl then falls into her mother's arms.

"I can't bear it," he hears her say and Cora replies "neither can I."

"Papa?" Julie is tucking on his coat. "I am cold."

"Then let's go inside."

The next few days are the worst of his life. He telephones the war office five times a day, he is sure they hate him there, Lilly calls another three times every day and he is scared every time he picks up the telephone and every time that Lilly returns form one of her telephone calls. But the news is always the same. There is no news and the longer there are no news, the more likely it becomes that Sam and Matthew are dead.

George and Jamie are in blissful ignorance of it all, they don't understand what is going on and the family and servants are careful to not let them overhear them talking about their worries. But Julie seems to have an inkling of what is happening, his usually cheerful little girl has become subdued and she hasn't asked a single question in four days now. She usually doesn't get through five minutes without asking at least two questions. Her birthday comes and goes and they acknowledge it and try to make a good day out of it but it isn't really possible. Mary is still constantly crying, Lilly hasn't eaten in days and Cora gazes into space without realizing what is going on around her more often than not. He is worried too, he thinks of Matthew as his son and although there had been only three months between him meeting Sam and the boy going off to war, he has heard Cora talk about him for over twenty years now and he is just as worried for Sam as he is for Matthew.

He is in search of his daughter who likes to go underfoot everywhere, especially in the servants hall, where she has made quite a few friends. She walked down there on her own for the first time shortly after her second birthday. She got away from the nursery and apparently just followed Carson who hadn't noticed her until he was downstairs. The nanny had fallen asleep and not missed Julie for hours and the little girl had stayed downstairs quite some time. She was fed with sweets and given a lot of attention and her sweet and kind nature had endeared her to just everyone. Ever since that day Julie has been a regular and very welcome guest in the servants' hall. Cora and he sometimes joke that Julie does not need a nanny because she is either with them or downstairs and he thinks that if there weren't any other children in the house, he probably really would have dismissed the nanny. He supposes that Jamie and George will eventually follow in Julie's footsteps, Jamie has in fact already started that. He hasn't walked into the servants' hall so far, but he has taken to running towards Carson and Bates whenever he sees one of them.

When he enters the servants' hall, something that has become quite common for him because he is search of his daughter rather often, the servants jump up as usual, although he has told them to not do that when he comes downstairs unannounced. But he supposes that Carson told the staff in no uncertain terms that they had to disregard that particular order of their employer.

"Please," he says exasperatedly. "I am just in search of Lady Julia."

"She is in the kitchen, your lordship."

"Papa," Julie exclaims when she sees him and runs towards him, all covered in flour.

"I am ever so sorry, your lordship. Lady Julia wanted to help me and she reached for the flour and," he feels sorry for the poor kitchen maid.

"Daisy, is it?" The girl nods.

"Say no more. I know my daughter. If she gets in your way too much, please tell her so and call for her nanny. It is very nice of you to let her be here, but it is a privilege you are giving to her, not a right that she has."

"Lady Julia, I have got your flowers." Mrs. Hughes has just entered the room, carrying a small bouquet.

"Thank you Mrs. Hughes."

"What do you need flowers for Julie?" He really has no idea.

"I want to give them to Mama. Maybe they will make her happy."

"I am sure they will. What do you think, should we bring them to her now?"

"Yes. But I will have to change first."

"I think you can see your Mama first." Mrs. Hughes smiles a benevolent smile at both him and Julie and he is sure that she is thinking what he is thinking: Seeing Julie all covered in flour will make Cora just as happy as her daughter bringing her flowers. Just like him, Cora doesn't mind Julie's antics, they both know that she is a little bit of a rascal and they both love her for it. Julie, despite her many nightmares, is a cause of laughter in the house.

So he takes his little girl to his wife's room and when she answers a far off 'come in' that sounds completely disinterested, he is afraid that Cora knows something that he doesn't. But when she asks him whether he found out anything, he knows that she has been imagining the worst, without them knowing whether it has happened.

"Mama, I brought you flowers," Julie says and holds the flowers out to her mother.

"Thank you. You also brought me flour, I see."

"The bag fell over."

"And were you under the bag?"

"Yes. I helped Daisy bake the cookies. But she calls them biscuits."

"Did you help or did you get in the way?"

"Daisy says I helped."

"Let's believe that then."

Julie has now climbed onto her mother's lap and has covered Cora in flour too.

"Mama, I love you. I just wanted you to know that." He marvels at his daughter. Not only because she seems to have understood what her mother needs, but also because of the way she talks. Julie is a mixture of Mary and Sam, she certainly has Mary's intelligence, which manifests itself by the fact that Julie speaks and thinks more like a six or seven year old than a three year old and Cora says that her inquisitiveness and her being a little rascal remind her of Sam every day.

"I do know that. But it is very nice of you to say it. And I love you too, my darling girl."

"Mama, Sam and Matthew will come home. I know they will."

Cora now hugs Julie tightly and he can see that their daughter feels uncomfortable but she doesn't say anything. He thinks that Julie might just be the nicest and most selfless person he has ever met.

More days pass and by Christmas Eve, they still haven't heard anything new. The war office still tells them to give up hope, but neither of them want to, although they are close to giving up hope. Carson asked him very carefully if the staff should change the way they were addressing and referring to Jamie. Sam's lesser and therefore Jamie's courtesy title is Earl of Wiltshire and thus Jamie is addressed and referred to as 'his lordship' by most of the servants, while other people who are not immediate family members call the boy 'Lord Wiltshire'. But he asked Carson to tell the staff to not address Jamie as 'your grace' before Sam's death has been confirmed, although he himself is afraid that Jamie is a duke already.

They are all sitting in the drawing room, her, her husband, their daughters and their grandsons. Neither Mary nor Lilly are really her daughters of course and George isn't her grandson, but she has come to think of them as hers and Robert's children and grandchildren. The war has brought the family very close and it is the only good thing that ever came out of it. She looks at the boy that really is her grandson and she is afraid that Jamie is a duke, that just like his father, that poor little boy became a duke much too early. Not at birth as happened to Sam, but Jamie has just turned two and he won't remember a time when he wasn't a duke, the poor boy won't remember his father at all. She has to keep telling herself that they still don't know what has happened, that they can't be sure that Jamie is a duke yet or that George is Robert's direct heir. But it has been almost two weeks now, and she is sure that the army put in every little bit of effort they could into finding a duke. It is killing her that her son has probably been killed, but it is an odd sort of comfort for her that he left a son behind, a son who is quite a lot like him. She watches Jamie wriggle out of Lilly's grasp as in slow motion, she hears him call out as if through a thick fog or a bowl of water.

"Papa!"

She turns towards the door and sees Sam and Matthew standing there and at the moment she turns, everyone else turns too and then it feels as if all hell had broken lose. Lilly and Mary almost fall over one another getting of the sofa, Robert picks up George from the floor and carries him over to Matthew, she herself gets up as in a trance and only barely realizes that she is overtaken by Julie who just runs through the adults legs and reaches Sam the moment Jamie does. She watches her son lift up both his son and sister at the same time and kiss Lilly in the process, she sees how Matthew takes Mary's face between his hands and kisses her and then takes George from Robert, she watches her husband greet both Matthew and Sam enthusiastically with tears in his eyes and she wants to go to them, she wants tell Sam that she is glad that he is back, but she can't bring herself to move. She feels as if in limbo. She wants to move, she wants to say something, but she can't. She begins to sway and wants to put a hand on the mantelpiece to steady herself, but her arm just doesn't move. She sees Sam put down Julie and Jamie and she hears both Sam and Julie shout 'Mama' and she feels someone catching her and realizes a moment later that is was Robert who caught her. She wants to tell him that something is wrong with her, but she can't. Someone lowers her onto the sofa, someone else calls for a doctor.

She feels Julie crashing into her and that somehow sets things in motion inside of her.

"Julie," she gasps out and he daughter begins to cry. She is able to move again, she lifts her daughter into her lap and tries to calm her down.

"It's alright, darling. Don't worry."

"Are you sure you are alright?"

"Yes, Robert. But I'll see Dr. Clarkson if he gets here, although I suppose it was just the shock." She then turns to her son and says

"You little rascal. How could you do that to me? How could you get lost behind enemy lines?" She isn't serious and Sam knows this and laughs out loud.

"I am sorry Mama. I don't know why the army didn't tell you that we had returned unscathed." She hugs her son then and after that gives Matthew a hug too.

"I wonder if we will ever live a peaceful quite life without any complications," she says to her husband when they are in their bedroom later that night.

"I don't know darling. But considering where we were a few years ago, we probably shouldn't complain. And we will have a wonderful Christmas and New Year's Eve and Day with Matthew and Sam home."

"Yes. For once we have got all the children here. I just wish the boys didn't have to return to France."

It is her dearest wish, but she knows it won't come true.

"Darling, try to focus on the present."

"I am trying. But the war is getting bloodier every day and we just can't be sure that we will ever see them again."

"No, we can't. But we've got them here now. Let's make a few more happy memories with them."

"Yes." She thinks that they might need those happy memories in the future.


	13. Chapter 13

"Robert, are you alright?"

"Yes." She doesn't believe him, he doesn't look alright, he has actually sat down and he never sits down in her room before they go down for dinner. She walks over to him and puts her hand on his forehead.

"You are sick, Robert."

"Just a little feverish."

"A little? You are burning up. Go to bed and please stay away from the children. I'll call Dr. Clarkson."

She is scared for her husband. She is almost sure he has got the Spanish flu, several of the staff have it, Lilly had it but shrugged it off easily and the children have been tucked away securely in a part of the house that only people that Dr. Clarkson has declared healthy are allowed to enter.

When the doctor has seen Robert, he tells her that her judgment was correct, tells her what medicine to administer and that he will come back in the morning. She spends the night sitting beside her husband's bed and she has the feeling that it is getting worse. She hardly sleeps a wink because Robert's fever is getting worse and he has begun to talk in his sleep. It is mostly nonsense, but a few times he mentions her name and she always takes his hand then and says "I am here, my darling."

The next morning the doctor again tells her that her assessment has been correct and that Robert has gotten worse, but that she shouldn't worry too much. However, two hours later Robert gives her cause to worry about him more than she ever has worried about him before. He has started to throw up and he obviously has no idea where he is or who she is. He keeps pushing her hand away, she is almost sure that he thinks that she is his first wife, the wife he hated so much. The doctor comes by again and tells her that he can't make any predictions. It scares the wits out of her. She tries to bring Robert's fever down, but he keeps pushing her away. He has feverish hallucinations now, he doesn't know that he is half-dreaming and he keeps telling her to leave and when Dr. Clarkson comes to check on Robert again, her husband says

"Make that woman leave. Get the Dowager Duchess of Suffolk, please. I need to talk to her. I need to tell her that I love her." It brings tears to her eyes because this means that at the moment Robert doesn't remember that he married her, that they have a child together. But the doctor looks at her questioningly and she nods.

"Lady Grantham, I have to ask you to leave," Dr. Clarkson says loud and clear. She swallows and with tears in her eyes she says

"Good. I have no interest in staying." She tried to sound as un-American as possible; she has no idea whether that worked. She leaves, waits outside the door for a few minutes and then knocks.

"Come in," the doctor calls and once she is inside turns to her husband.

"Lord Grantham, the Dowager Duchess of Suffolk is here. I will leave you two now."

* * *

He doesn't really leave, he doesn't dare to, he is scared of what will happen to the Earl. He knows he is intruding on Lady Grantham's privacy, but she doesn't seem to mind.

She kneels down next to his bed and says "Robert, darling, I am here."

This scene takes him back about four years and few months ago when he watched a similar scene between Lord and Lady Grantham, but it had been the Countess fighting for her life then, during and right after having given birth to her daughter.

"Cora, I am sorry. For not making you my wife when I could. I shouldn't have listened to my parents, I should have married you. I love you."

"I love you too."

"I wish I had made you happy."

"You have made me happy Robert, happier than I ever thought I could be."

He thinks that Lady Grantham has made Lord Grantham very happy as well. He has known the Earl for twenty years now, he knew his first wife, he knows all the children, children-in-law and grandchildren of the family. The change that the arrival of the new Lady Grantham brought to the Abbey and the county is hard to put into words, but to him it felt as if the sun had finally risen above the county after two decades of darkness. Of course this is melodramatic, but the arrival of the new Countess changed things and most of all it changed the Earl.

"Good. That is all I want."

"Robert, please don't give up. Fight, Robert, please, I don't want to lose you."

"I am trying love," he says and then falls silent for a minute. He begins to thrash and moan after that again.

"Lady Grantham, you should go to bed."

"I can't leave him. What are his chances?"

"He'll live if he makes to through the night."

He doesn't tell her though that he very much doubts that the Earl will make it through the night and wonders whether he should tell Matthew Crawley, so that the poor man knows what is most likely coming his way.

He now leaves Lord and Lady Grantham after all, but decides to spend another night at the Abbey. He is not only scared that Lord Grantham will die, he is also scared of what will happen to Lady Grantham then. More than a year ago she almost went catatonic at seeing her son again after having thought him dead for almost three weeks, and shortly before the end of the war she actually did become catatonic when she was told that her son had been injured very gravely. He still remembers that day in excruciating detail. He had been with Lady Grantham, they had been discussing the nurses' schedules when Lord Grantham had walked into the room, his face tear-streaked and Lady Grantham only asked "Matthew or Sam?"

"Sam," Lord Grantham answered. "He is still alive, but barely. The War Office called. Matthew is bringing him home, apparently that was Sam's request and they didn't want to deny him that."

"Then they must have thought that it was a last request."

"Yes." Lady Grantham froze at that and didn't move anymore, she didn't react to anything or anyone around her. Lord Grantham and he put her to bed, he did all he could, but all the Countess did was breathe. He is almost sure that she was trapped in some horrible place she couldn't get out of and he knows that was because it had all been too much for the Countess. Not matter how much Lady Grantham refuses to accept the truth; the birth of her daughter has weakened her permanently. Not in a way that it would cause her to have to sit in bed all day long, but she was certainly not strong enough to run a convalescent home more or less by herself. He told the Earl who he knows begged his wife to stop working so much, but she didn't listen. As it turned out, she is not able to deal with very bad news anymore, at least her body reacts to those news much more strongly than it should. She eventually snapped out of it, apparently in the middle of the night, without any apparent reason, but he is afraid that it will happen again and that the effect will be much more serious if Lady Grantham had to deal with her husband's death. Like anyone else in the village, most likely the whole county and probably all of England know, he knows that Lady Grantham was pregnant before the wedding and from what Isobel Crawley has told him, Lord and Lady Grantham must have had a rather long affair. It would of course explain Lord Grantham's very frequent trips to London which stopped as soon as he was married again. According to Mrs. Crawley, and she is to be trusted in this, being the mother Matthew, Lord and Lady Grantham met for the first time when they were still quite young and unmarried but were kept apart by something and both of them ended up in very unhappy marriages. It must have been quite an ordeal for them and they deserve some carefree happiness now, and so, because he doesn't know what else to do, he begins to pray for Lord Grantham's survival.

* * *

All she wants to do is say goodnight to her parents. She hasn't seen them for two days and she hates that, so she slips out of the room. She and the other children aren't in the nursery; they have been moved to a different part of the house. Nanny says that is because people in the house are sick and she and Jamie and George and Lizzy are not supposed to become sick too. But she is scared that her parents are sick and if they are sick she needs to take care of them the way they take care of her when she is sick.

It is easy to get out of the room and into the family wing; she is good at sneaking around. She carefully opens the door to her parents' room and stares at what she sees.

Her mother is kneeling next to the bed, holding her father's hand and she says "Robert, please, don't leave me" over and over again. She is afraid that her Papa will die and she walks into the room. "Mama," she says and her mother looks up at her.

"Julie," she says. "You shouldn't be here my darling."

"I wanted to say goodnight."

"Goodnight, Julie."

"Papa is very sick, isn't he?" She wants her Mama to say no but she knows that she will say yes.

"Yes, Julie."

"Will he die?"

"I don't know."

She climbs onto the bed and sits down next to her father. Her mother talked to him and so maybe she should talk to him too. She likes it when her parents talk to her when she is sick. It makes her feel less alone.

"Papa, I love you," she says because that is the first thing that comes to her mind.

"Mary," her Papa mumbles and her mother begins to sob.

"No Papa, not Mary. Julie. But I can get Mary if you want me to."

Her father grabs her hand instead and then says "Mary, I am sorry for everything you have been through. But never forget that I love you."

"Papa, I am not Mary. I am Julie." She is scared now. Why doesn't her father know who she is? He calls her his little darling girl, how could he have forgotten her? She can't help but cry.

"Julie, darling, your father is very sick. He thinks that you are your sister. He doesn't do it to hurt you. You must believe that." Her mother sounds so sad.

"Yes, Mama," she says because she doesn't want to make her Mama angry.

"Papa, I will go down into the kitchen and ask Daisy to help my bake a chocolate cake for you." She knows her father loves chocolate cake, maybe he won't die if he knows that he is getting a cake and maybe he will remember her when she brings him the cake because Mary would never bake a cake.

"Mama, I love you too," she says before she leaves again.

* * *

She sits down at her husband's side again.

"Robert, please don't leave me. I love you," she says again and then begins to sob. She wonders what she has done to deserve this. For eighteen years she couldn't marry the love her life and when she could, a war that involved the whole world broke out on their wedding day. She almost died giving birth to their daughter. Their marriage took a down turn for a while two years later and once they had found each other again, Matthew and Sam had been lost in France. When everyone had already been sure last October that the war would be over soon, Sam had been very seriously hurt and they hadn't known for longer than four weeks whether he would survive. Her boy made it through, he fought for his life as he had fought for his country and although he isn't completely back on his feet yet, he still has difficulties walking sometimes, he will be completely well again soon. She had hoped for a happy summer with her family, all her children and grandchildren around her, finally a summer and then a fall and then a Christmas without any worries. But none of that will happen if her husband died. It would be the end of her life. She would keep it together long enough for Julie to grow up, but she knows it would be a hard struggle, because life without Robert isn't worth living to her.

* * *

When she comes into the servants' hall, most of the servants sit around the table but there is no laughter or talk.

"Excuse me," she says and they all rise. She never understands why they do that. The family doesn't get up for them.

"Lady Julia," Carson says. "How may we help you?"

"I want to bake a chocolate cake for my Papa," she answers. "He likes chocolate cake very much."

"Lady Julia, it is too late to bake a cake."

"But," she can't go on anymore. She doesn't care that it is late, she wants to do this and she begins to cry. She hates being a child, she feels so helpless.

"I'll bake a cake with you. I am sorry Mr. Carson, I know I shouldn't go against your orders, but I will help her."

"It is your decision, Daisy."

So Daisy takes her to the kitchen and helps her. She tells her what to do and helps her with the measurements and the stirring. It feels good to do something for her Papa, she is sure that it will help. She stays downstairs while the cake is in the oven and once it is done she asks if Daisy would help her bring it upstairs and when they are in front of her parents' room, Daisy places the cake in her hands, opens the door for her a little and then leaves.

When she walks into the room, her mother is still holding her father's hand, saying 'I love you', over and over again.

"Mama, I have got the cake," she says and her mother looks at her with tear-streaked cheeks and the saddest face she has ever seen.

"Put it down over there Julie, and then please leave."

"But Mama,"

"Julia. Your father is about to die. He doesn't need your cake and I don't want to take care of you right now. Go back to the nursery at once. I want to be alone with your father and I don't want you around." She has never been hurt like that and she begins to cry, but she does as her mother tells her. She puts the cake on her mother's vanity without letting it fall to the ground and then she leaves.

"Goodnight, Mama," she says before she walks through the door, but her mother ignores her.

* * *

AN: Just a warning: There won't be any updates for the next one and a half weeks, because I am going somewhere where there is no internet, so this time I will have to make you wait.

Thank you so much for all the lovely reviews you have written to this story, each one of them puts a smile on my face.

Kat


	14. Chapter 14

AN: I am now in a hotel that has free WiFi, although the connection is rather slow, but I thought that I could give this update a shot. I will return to updating more regularly within the next few days, once I am home and have slept for a good while :)

* * *

Her maid comes in at eight and tries to pry her away from Robert. Sometime during the night she lay down next to him and fell into a fitful sleep and while she was asleep, she somehow moved into Robert's arm. Her head is on his shoulder and his arm around her and she holds onto him as if her life depended on it.

"Your ladyship, you have to wake up. Dr. Clarkson is here and he has to examine his lordship."

She knows it is illogical but she doesn't want this to happen because she is afraid of the doctor's evaluation of Robert's health.

"My lady, please."

She knows there is nothing she can do and that she will have to face the truth eventually, so she gets up and lets the doctor do what he has to do. He doesn't try to send her away; he probably knows that she would not go anyway.

"It looks better. Much better. The fever obviously broke and he should wake up soon."

"What does that mean?"

"That Lord Grantham won't die."

She becomes dizzy and she is afraid that she will again end up in a state in which she can't do anything, but she pulls herself together and looks at the alarm clock on the night stand instead. It is eight thirty in the morning and she knows what she has to do. She dismisses the doctor, writes a short note for Robert she places on her pillow and then leaves. As usual all the servants jump up as soon as she comes downstairs, although both she and Robert have repeatedly told them to not do this as long as they come downstairs unannounced because they are often in search of their daughter who likes to get underfoot in the servants' hall and in the kitchen.

"Good morning. Please, stay seated. I am looking for Lady Julia."

Julie walks in at that moment, clearly arriving from the kitchen and looking rather apprehensive.

"Julie, there you are. Let's go upstairs."

"I promised Daisy I would help," the little girl says in what is clearly and attempt to not have to come with her mother. It breaks her heart, but she thinks that she probably deserves this.

"That was very nice of you my darling, but I need you upstairs for just a few minutes." Julie turns around and looks at Daisy uncertainly who nods at her.

"Alright Mama, if that is what you wish." Julie says this in such a grave voice that she wants to pick up her daughter right in that moment and apologize to her over and over again, but she can't do so in front of all the servants. So she just holds out her hand to her little girl and guides her up the stairs.

"Mama, might I ask what you need me for?" For a moment she wonders if Julie tries to hurt her intentionally by using such formal wording as a revenge for last night, but when she looks into the girl's face, she sees that that is not the case. She drops down to her knees and pulls her daughter close to her.

"Oh Julie, I am sorry about last night. I shouldn't have been so short with you. I know you only wanted to help."

"How is Papa?"

"Much better. Dr. Clarkson says he will wake up soon. Maybe he will already be awake when we get there."

"So that is where we are going?"

"Yes." She lifts Julie up and starts to walk. The girl puts her arms around her and says "I love you Mama." It almost drives her to tears.

She carefully opens the door and Robert is awake, reading her note.

"Papa!" Julie struggles free and jumps out of her arms.

Robert doesn't say anything but hugs Julie as best as he can lying down.

"I made you a cake. It is over there. A chocolate cake. Because I know you like it and you have to eat when you are sick to get your strength back. That is what Mama always says."

"Thank you." Those are the first words that Robert has said and she can see that it pains him to say even that little.

"Julie, go and see if Mary is up and tell her that your father is much better now. Tell all the others too, if you like."

"Yes Mama."

"Thank you."

She waits until Julie has shut the door before sitting down next to Robert and taking his hand in hers.

"I am so glad."

It only takes him a couple of days to get back on his feet and he tells his daughter that his speedy recovery is probably due to her almost endless supply of chocolate cake and ham and bacon sandwiches, another one of his favorite foods. He wonders if he isn't encouraging his youngest daughter too much concerning her work in the kitchen, but when he shares his doubts with Cora she says that Sam spent most of his time between the ages of six and sixteen either in the stables or in the garage and that learning how deal with horses and cars certainly hasn't hurt him.

"And she is only four, she doesn't really work in the kitchen, she gets to knead the dough and probably eat a bit of it too. Otherwise she keeps Mrs. Patmore and mainly Daisy company. And what is the harm in the daughter of an Earl knowing how much work is put into the food she gets served every day?" He can't help but agree with his wife.

When Spring turns into Summer he thinks that the family has finally entered a much deserved phase of calm and peacefulness. Matthew and Sam are both back to being their old selves and they come up with ever more modern plans to change the running of the estate and he lets them. Sam's estate makes quite a lot of profit and he trusts both his boys to not do anything too foolish, in fact, he is quite sure that they are a lot less foolish than him. He is of course still in charge, but he listens to Sam and Matthew more than he has ever listened to anyone. There will be another child in the house before Christmas and he is sure that the second child of Mary and Matthew will not be the last child that will join them any time soon. And he is right. Lilly and Sam make the announcement that they will have another child as well after the annual garden party.

"Papa, a penny for your thoughts." Julie has joined him on the bench from which he is watching Cora and Mary walk around the garden, trying to decide on which flowers to pick for the bouquet for dinner. He has to laugh about his daughter who is only a little older than four and a half years but sometimes sounds so grown up already.

"You can have them for a kiss and a hug," he says to her and she pays him in kind.

"I was wondering if your mother and sister will be successful in designing a bouquet that your grandmother will like."

"They will not be, Granny likes to complain." He has to laugh about this.

"You are probably right."

"Nanny says I spend too much time in the kitchen." This does not come out of the blue for him, the nanny talked to Cora about this too. It surprises him though that the nanny told Julie because Cora told the nanny that Julie could spend as much time in the kitchen as she liked.

"Do you like being in the kitchen?"

"Yes. I like making food."

"What kind of food do you make?"

"Cake. I help kneading the dough. And I peeled a few potatoes yesterday."

"With a knife?" Maybe he should talk to Mrs. Patmore.

"No. With a potato peeler Papa."

"Oh, of course." He has no idea what a potato peeler is but thinks that he should not tell his daughter that.

"I also help shape the cookies. But Mrs. Patmore says I have to call them biscuits. But I don't think I really have to. Mama calls them cookies too."

"Yes, she does." He has to smile at that. Julie loves her mother dearly and he knows that his daughter's greatest ambition is to be like her Mama, which leads her to imitate the way Cora speaks. The result is a rather charming mixture of English and American English, in both choice of words and pronunciation. If Julie keeps this up, her way of talking alone will probably make her one of the most interesting young women during her first season. But that is still 14 years away and he can't help but be thankful for that.

"Papa, why doesn't Mama talk like you or Granny?"

"Because she is American."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why is she American?"

"Because she was born in America. She came to England when she was nineteen."

"Why?"

"She wanted to live in England." Sometimes his little girl asks questions he wishes she would not want answers to for a few more years.

"Because she wanted to live with you."

"No. She didn't know me before she moved here."

"But when she was here she met you."

"Yes." He briefly wonders if he should change the subject of the conversation, but he knows that if he did, Julie would change it right back.

"Why didn't you marry her then?"

"Because I was a stupid fool."

"You aren't stupid, Papa. And you aren't a fool." He wishes that Julie would never grow out of the age at which children think that their parents can do no wrong.

"Thank you."

"Charlotte says you only married Mama because of me."

"Who is Charlotte?"

"One of the maids. She said so yesterday when she came into the kitchen to get a sandwich and saw me there. She said you wouldn't have married Mama if she hadn't been in the family way. But I don't know what that means."

"It means that you are having a baby."

"So Mary and Lilly are in the family way because they are pregnant."

"Yes."

"Is it true that you only married Mama because of me?"

"No. I married your Mama because I love her."

"Mary says it takes nine months for a baby to be born."

"She is right about that." He hopes the girl won't go any further but he knows that he is hoping against hope.

"I was born five months after you and Mama got married." The girl is too smart for her own good.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"You were born earlier than you should have been." That is not a lie after all, she was born early. He knows that eventually Cora and he will have to talk their daughter about their affair, they will have to tell her all of it because Sam and Mary know all of it too, but he won't talk to Julie about this now, she is still too young to understand all of it.

"Mary says that is because you and Mama already loved each other before you got married."

"Yes."

"Mary says you loved Mama for a long time before you got married." He should have words with Mary over this.

"Yes."

"Mr. Carson says that Mama has changed everything around here. He said that Downton Abbey was a gloomy home before Mama came here."

He wonders why the butler would say such a thing to Julie, but supposes that Julie's frequent presence in the servants' hall influences how the staff see her and how they talk to her.

"He is not wrong."

"So Mary's Mama wasn't very nice."

"No, she was not." He really doesn't want to talk about this, but he knows that Julie won't let go.

"I am glad that my Mama is nice and makes you happy."

"That, my darling girl, she certainly does. And so do you."

"Julie! Wanna play with us?"

George and Jamie have come out of the house, followed by the nanny. Jamie is holding up a ball.

"You don't mind, Papa, do you?"

"Of course not."

He watches his daughter and grandsons as they play football on the lawn and wonders when it will be time to teach the boys cricket and to tell Julie that she shouldn't play those games at all. He hopes that time will never come.

"A penny for your thoughts, my darling." He has to laugh at this.

"You can get them for a kiss." Just as Julie did, Cora pays in kind, but with a very different sort of kiss.

"I only thought that I wish there was a way to freeze time. For our lives to be like this forever. I have never been so happy, never been so free of any worries. And it is all thanks to you."

"No Robert, that is not true. I am part of that, but certainly not solely responsible for your happiness."

"Still, if you think about where we were six years ago, it just makes you wonder."

"About what?"

"Whether this isn't just the calm before the next storm."

"Maybe it is the reward for all that we have been through. Darling, stop worrying. Enjoy what we have."

"I do."

"Good. And now kiss me."

And so he kisses his wife, the woman he loves more than anything.

* * *

AN: This is the end of this story. Thank you for all the reviews!

I thought about writing a oneshot about the beginning of the affair. What do you think?

Kat


	15. Chapter 15

This is the oneshot that I promised about the beginning of the affair, although I have put it in a frame narration set in 1936. Let me know what you think about this idea.

BTW: Tom Branson is about 20 years younger than he is on the show in this story.

_The Manchester Guardian_ is what is today known as _The Guardian_.

Thanks again for everything. And to all those of you who said "Thank you for this story": You are very, very welcome and it makes me very happy that you like it so much.

Kat

* * *

Epilogue

Downton 1936

"Papa? Have you got a minute?"

"Of course I do." He always has time for his little darling girl. Although she isn't little anymore, she is 21 years old now. He sometimes can't believe it. The world changed so much and with it his life.

"What would you say if I told you that I was engaged?" He knew this was coming, Julie has had her third season now, and it is, in Cora's words, "about time".

"I'd ask you 'to whom'?"

"Tom Branson."

"The chauffeur?" He almost spits his drink across the room.

"Well, yes."

"Why?"

"Because we love each other."

"Do you?"

"Yes."

"And you are sure this is not one of your adventures?" Julie has done quite a lot of unusual things in her life, she has been helping in the kitchen ever since she was four, she went to the village school because she absolutely refused to work with a tutor, in fact, he had to convince the headmaster at Ripon Grammar to accept girls because he didn't want his daughter to go to a boarding school, her best friend is Amy Bates, the daughter of his valet and Mary's lady's maid and the two are inseparable. And now this.

"I am sure Papa. And Tom is not a chauffeur anymore."

"No? He hasn't handed in his notice yet."

"But he will do so today. He is now a journalist. _The Manchester Guardian_ has offered him a job and he took it."

"That leftist paper? Do they pay him enough to support you?"

"I don't think so, but that is not a problem. I will work as a cook. Daisy, Mrs. Mason I mean, has offered to write me a reference that does not mention that I am the daughter of an Earl. And all I really need is a chance to prove my cooking skills. After that it should be easy for me to get a job."

"I shall think so. You have prepared some of the best meals served in this house." That is true, Julie has turned into an excellent cook, but then she has been training for 17 years already.

"Thank you."

"But would you be comfortable? Working for a different family?"

"Oh, I would work in a restaurant."

"Would you?"

"Yes. Or a hotel." He doesn't know which is worse.

"Julie."

"Papa, please, I have made my decision."

"Let me finish, please. If I were to give you enough money to live rather comfortably, would you still want to work in a hotel or a restaurant?"

"Would you do that?"

"Yes. We've come out of the crisis more or less unscathed. It wouldn't be a problem."

"Well, if I didn't have to earn money for a living, I think I'd rather volunteer at an orphanage. Cook for the children there, teach the older girls how to cook, to give them a perspective. I could do the same for the unemployed. I think I would like that very much. Maybe I could even found a charity. 'Cooking for a Living'. Something along those lines. Mama could be its patron, I am sure that would make people give quite a lot of money." Julie is certainly not wrong about that. Cora is very popular among their social circle but also among the people living in the county.

"Julie, if that is what you want, then I won't be in your way. And neither will your mother be."

"I told Tom you would say that."

"How did you know?"

"I know you Papa. And you married a woman who was your mistress for 18 years. Although I did not tell Tom about that." Julie says this laughingly and he isn't upset by what she said. He knows that to their daughter, his and Cora's story is the most romantic love story of all time. That is what Julie said to them when they told her when she was fourteen and she has said it several times since then. He watches his daughter leave and when she turns around at the door to say "Thank you Papa" he marvels at the fact of how much Julie looks like her mother. It makes him look at the pictures on his desk and his eyes fall on one picture that he likes in particular. It is the only picture they have that shows Cora and him together when they were about Julie's age. The picture was taken at the wedding of a friend and they stood next to each other for the obligatory wedding party picture. In this picture they are looking at each other and they are smiling. He cut them out of the picture and framed just the part that shows them and he thinks that their feelings for each other are visible on this picture.

His still thinks that it is rather ironic that the reason that Cora stood next to him on the picture was that his first wife didn't want to go to that wedding and claimed a non-existent illness. He then asked the host if there was any possibility to pair him up with the Dowager Countess of Suffolk, as she surely would come by herself and their host agreed and put them in rooms next to each other. Although that weekend had not been the beginning of their affair, it had certainly been its manifestation. He closes his eyes as he remembers the ball at which it all started.

_He is beyond angry at his wife as she has just left the ball without any particular reason but has apparently told almost everyone at the ball that he refused to go with her. That of course is a lie; he did not even know she wanted to leave. He looks across the ballroom and stares daggers at everyone until he meets a pair of pale blue eyes. He knows those eyes; they belong to the Dowager Duchess of Suffolk. He pursued her before he proposed to his wife, although at that time the Duchess had of course still been Miss Cora Levinson, an American heiress with enough money to save Downton, but an American nonetheless. Both his parents told him that he should not take her when there were English woman with enough money available as well and because he was 18 at that time he listened, although ever since the day of his wedding he has regretted this. Cora now smiles at him and she walks over to him. _

_"__I am sorry about the spectacle your wife made just now. It was very embarrassing, though far more for her than for you. I don't think that anyone believes that you refused to go with her. You are much too nice for that."_

_"__Thank you, Duchess."_

_"__You are welcome. I don't think I have to ask you how you've been."_

_"__You've just had a glimpse at what it is like. Although there is of course Mary, my daughter. She is a wonderful child."_

_"__I am glad something good came out of this for you. Isn't it funny? How children make even the bleakest situations almost bright? I wanted to move back to New York right after my husband's death but I had to wait for the child to be born. I hoped for a girl so much because only with a girl would I have been able to move back. But then I had a boy and when they told me I wanted to cry, but as soon as I held him for the first time, staying in England did not seem much of a sacrifice anymore."_

_He feels so sorry for her and so guilty. He could have made both their lives so much easier and so much better, if he had not given to his parents and proposed to the woman they wanted him to marry but had instead proposed to the woman he wanted to marry._

_"__I am so very sorry."_

_"__Don't be, Robert. It is no one's fault. Or maybe it is just as much my fault as it is yours. I could have spoken up; I could have told you what I wanted. But I didn't and the reason I didn't was that my parents thought that my money should buy me more than just the title of a Viscountess, if I would become a Countess in time."_

_"__We were too young."_

_"__Yes. If it had all happened two or three years later," but she stops speaking. They have walked outside and are now quite out of side from anyone and although he doesn't know why he does this, he pulls her close to him and says_

_"__Cora, I," but she stops him by kissing him almost senseless._

_"__I am so sorry, I shouldn't have done that," she says once she stops and she looks at him rather sheepishly._

_"__That was the best kiss I ever got, of course you should have done it. And what does it matter? Your husband is dead and my marriage was rocky from the start and has been in ruins ever since Mary's birth." She looks at him a little taken aback._

_"__So that means that you and your wife don't" she is looking for words that would let her go on. He still has his arms around her waist and says_

_"__We don't do our duty. She cheats on me quite regularly and I have to make sure to not be presented with a bastard. If I don't, well you know what I mean, then I can be sure that should she have another child, it wouldn't be mine."_

_"__I can't have any more children." He doesn't know what she means, but she looks as if she was about to regret what she said._

_"__What?"_

_"__I can't have any more children. Sam's birth was difficult and I have seen a number of doctors and they all say the same." She seems to be happy and sad about this at the same time. _

_"__I am sorry." He doesn't know what else to say. _

_"__Don't be. It is a blessing in disguise, isn't it? Or it could be."_

_"__What?" He still doesn't understand._

_"__Are you staying here?"_

_"__No. I am supposed to go home. Although I am not looking forward to it."_

_"__I am staying. You could"_

_"__No." He has to stop this. He can't just spend the night with her and do god-knows-what. "I can't."_

_"__Why not?" She is almost begging now._

_"__Because I am a married man."_

_"__You are married to a woman who cheats on you and whom you don't," but he stops her._

_"__No, Cora. I can't. However much I might want to." He says the last sentence in a hoarse whisper and as soon as he has said it, he can't stop himself anymore. This admission has set something in him free and he begins to kiss her again and she kisses him back and then he lets her lead him to her room. _

_"__I never knew this could be so much fun," are the first coherent words he says to her a while later._

_"__It was terrific fun, wasn't it?"_

_"__Oh yes." He wishes he had known what this could be like, he never would have listened to his parents then._

_"__Are you staying in London for the Season?"_

_"__Yes. We'll find a way, Cora, don't worry. I'll think of something." She smiles at him and gives him one last kiss before they both fall asleep. He has to sneak out of the house like a thief in the night at five o'clock in the morning and has to sneak into his family's house quite the same way, but he doesn't care, it is worth it._

_They meet again, a week later at a friend's wedding and because his wife didn't want to come, he spends almost all his time with Cora. They have been put into rooms next to each other, with an adjoining door and they make use of it. He has never spend a weekend like this and the only thing that bothers him is that he can't be open about his relationship with Cora. _

_Over the course of the summer, they find ways to see each other at least once a week and sometimes more but he dreads the end of the season because that will make things so much more difficult for them. When he tells Cora this, she smiles at him, puts an address into his hands and tells him to come there three days later. He does as he is asked and finds a secluded cottage on the outskirts of a vast estate. Cora is waiting for him in front of the little house._

_"__What is this?"_

_"__This is my son's estate and I thought that we could make use of this cottage. We could always stay for two or three days."_

_"__What about food and other things?"_

_"__There are two servants here."_

_"__Are you mad?" His marriage might not be a happy one, but he dreads to think about the consequences of his affair with a Duchess becoming public._

_"__No. They are the most loyal servants I have ever had. I brought both of them with me from America. They will not tell on us, I promise." _

_He believes her because it is the only thing he can do. Over the course of the next few months their affair turns into something far more serious. They were looking for the physical aspect of love, both of them, but what they get over time is so much more. He knows he loves her, but he doesn't dare to tell her. He tries everything he can to get a divorce, but he can't, not even with a private bill in parliament. He tells her about this and she smiles a sad smile but then says that there is nothing to be done and that they should be happy to have what they have. They spend more and more time talking about private matters, often but not exclusively about their children and the things they have to deal with in what they call their 'real lives'. By the time that Christmas comes around, he cannot imagine a life without Cora anymore and when they finally see each other again a week after the New Year, he had so many family obligations that he couldn't see her for either Christmas or New Year's Eve, she finally says "I love you". It causes a shiver to run down his spine and when he tells her that he feels the same for her, neither one of them can stop the tears from falling. _

_"__I am so happy," she says to him after a while._

_"__But we can never get married," he replies and she says "Oh my darling, never say never."_

"Robert?" He is startled out of his reverie by a very gentle hand being placed on his shoulders.

"Yes?"

"Penny for your thoughts?"

"You can get them for a kiss." This is a game they have been playing for decades now and she laughs and then kisses him briefly on the lips. They are in a public room of the house after all.

"I was just thinking about how I once told you that we could never get married and that you said 'never say never'."

"And I was right. We've been married for almost 22 years now."

"Yes. I hope you don't regret it." It is meant in jest but Cora turns serious at this.

"Of course not. I could never regret marrying for love."

"Let's hope that Julie will never regret it either."

"She told you then?"

"About her and the chauffeur?"

"He is a journalist now."

"Yes, she told me."

"And?"

"I have given her my blessings. What else was I supposed to do?"

"Nothing. You believe in love after all," she says and smiles a brilliant smile at him.

"Well my darling, I have ample proof that it exists."


End file.
